Liverpool Sound and vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Guy Pearce, Stephen Graham, Joe Alwyn, Vinette Robinson, Lenny Rush, Jason Flemyng, Johnny Harris, Tiarna Williams, Billy Barratt, Carmel Laniado, Paul Chahidi, Tom Medcalf, Ninette Finch, Andy Serkis, Charlotte Riley, Kayvan Novak, Callum Evans, Earl Carpenter, Dan Fredenburgh, Elliot Warren, Niamh Lynch, Abraham Popoola.

There are many reasons why A Christmas Carol is so beloved, why it keeps enticing directors and adaptors to Charles Dickens’ most famous work and audiences enthralled with its message of redemption and hope; but a missing link to the truth of the human condition has not been one of them.

Almost every incarnation of Ebenezer Scrooge has been rooted in his final acceptance, the immediate change to which has been demanded over time as a symbol of Christmas Day, hijacked arguably by commercialism and by those in society who use the man’s surname as a snide criticism of someone’s perceived behaviour when they find out that the person doesn’t celebrate the festivity, all past indiscretions forgotten as songs and merriment ensue in old London Town.

However, the feel-good factor demanded and detailed in overwhelmingly good productions involving Muppets, Albert Finney, Patrick Stewart, Alistair Sim and even in the more evocative Scrooged with Bill Murray, all deny one thing in between song and dance routines and the tropes of fantasy required, that of a truth, one that arguably has completely erased over time, that people do not change their heart that quickly, that their own path to redemption is not to be found in the sudden Christmas cheer and the blessing of delivering a goose the size of a boy to the table of an employee that has been abused and neglected for years.

Redemption is possible, and the cast and creatives of this particular version made for the B.B.C. beautifully investigate this and the addition of Jacob Marley’s part to devastating and brilliant effect. In Guy Pearce’s reading of Scrooge the audience is given reason to understand pain, not a person initially driven by money, but more of a reflection of Charles Dickens’ own life as the workhouse called on his father and the drive to avoid that for himself in adulthood; it is in this portrayal that it could be argued that this is more truthful version, one driven by circumstances and not from complete greed.

With stunning performances by Vinette Robinson as Bob Cratchit’s wife Mary, Lenny Rush as Tiny Tim, Stephen Graham as Ebenezer’s business partner Jacob Marley and Andy Serkis as The Spirit of Christmas Past, this latest adaption of Dickens’ work is without doubt the most sincere, most truthful of the human condition ever captured, on television and on film; incredible and ingenious, A Christmas Carol that sings of the promise of redemption not it’s flattering finale.

Ian D. Hall