John O’Connor stars in the authentic production of A Christmas Carol at Greenwich Theatre, London. This festive adaptation sees actor John O’Connor take to the stage as Charles Dickens, performing the classic Christmas ghost story as Dickens did himself in Greenwich in 1866.
Charles Dickens originally wanted to be an actor and A Christmas Carol was the first public performance he gave of his work. After opening night, he said the success was most wonderful and prodigious – perfectly overwhelming and astounding altogether! Dickens’s electrifying public readings were hugely popular throughout Britain and America; he had a magnetic stage presence, riveting eyes, expressive voice, and wonderful powers of characterisation. Remarkably, Dickens made more money from his readings than from all his novels and stories put together, performing A Christmas Carol over 150 times. This exciting production, adapted from Dickens’s own public reading scripts and eyewitness accounts of him on stage, recreates the spirit of his original performances.
A Christmas Carol is at Greenwich Theatre Tuesday 12th and Monday 18th December 2023
You’re bringing A Christmas Carol to Greenwich Theatre, what can you tell us about this version of the classic story?
It’s a one-man show based on Charles Dickens’s own public performances of the story in the 1860s. He was a frustrated actor and these readings were a way for him to get up on stage and connect with his audience.
By all accounts he was an extraordinary performer and used to play to 2000 people a night all over Britain and America. Incredibly, he made more money from these tours than from all his novels put together! My starting point for the show was ‘what must it have been like to be in the audience, in the presence of the author himself?’ Everything grew from there.
Do you think audiences are often surprised to learn that Dickens would have once performed the show himself?
Yes, and I was surprised myself when I discovered it. Imagine if JK Rowling announced tomorrow that she was going to perform a one-woman show of Harry Potter playing all the characters? That’s how bizarre it was to a Victorian audience that Dickens was prepared to put himself through this. Fortunately, he was a gifted actor and communicator so audiences were completely blown away. He did two performances at Royal Hill in Greenwich in 1866 about 100 metres from where Greenwich Theatre stands today.
What’s the biggest challenge for you in bringing this story to life every night on your own?
It’s a big challenge from a technical point of view as I play more than 20 characters and Dickens himself over 90 minutes! It’s important to make every characterisation vivid and different, and to fill the stage with colour. We use Dickens’s own performance script which he honed over 12 years of touring. The audience may have seen various adaptations but this comes from the source itself and is a direct address so has an immediacy that they seem to love. At its best, the show is like an intimate conversation with the audience.
This is your fifth year of doing it, how have you refined the show over time?
It’s actually our seventh year of doing it and our fifth at Greenwich Theatre. We always try and refresh the show every year by adding a new element or working with a new director, designer, etc. Dickens used to do it with just a lectern but modern audiences would expect the show to have a set, lighting, sound effects and some magic so we have added all of those elements over time. I can only really do this show in December so there’s always an 11 month gap between last and first performances. That alone keeps it fresh and honest.
I’m a year older and come to it with another year of experience. I’m now the age Dickens was when he performed it at his peak but thankfully I’m not, like him, also writing a novel in serial form while touring Britain and America, editing two magazines and campaigning for several charities at the same time!
And it’s coming to London as part of a tour, how has that been going so far?
We open at Greenwich on 12 Dec. I was planning to take this year off but several venues got in touch to ask for the show back which is pleasing. I’ve performed it all over the UK since 2016 and in Germany and Ireland too. Next year, we have the opportunity to take it to Paris and Milan as well as to our regular British venues. One day, we hope to tour America with it as Dickens did in 1867-68.
What would you say to anyone thinking of booking this authentic version of A Christmas Carol?
Dickens used to say to his audiences before a reading:
‘If you feel disposed to give expression to any emotion whether grave or gay, you will do so with perfect freedom from restraint and without the least apprehension of disturbing me’.
In other words, there’s no need to be as reserved as a Victorian! Feel free to laugh, cry, gasp and wonder, in the spirit of Christmas past, present and future.
