After the huge success of its production of A Christmas Carol last year, Coventry’s Albany Theatre is revisiting the show this festive season, but with a few new treats in store - as director Kevin Shaw and actor Paul Nolan reveal...

“I was really pleased with the production last year, but we are going to be ‘tidging’ it a bit - it’s not about rinse and repeat.”

Kevin Shaw, the Albany Theatre’s affable chief executive & artistic director, isn’t the sort of character to find a winning formula and stick to it, but he couldn’t ignore the rationale for bringing back last year’s festive-hit production of Charles Dickens’ classic tale, A Christmas Carol. Not least because the traditional poster claims of being ‘back due to public demand’ actually ring true - particularly among students studying the text for GCSE.

“At many of the schools’ performances, as the teachers were leaving, they said: if you tell us you’re doing it again next year, we’ll book now!” Kevin exclaims. “So that was one of the reasons for restaging it. Another was that sales for the public performances were going incredibly well until Omicron bit and they fell off a cliff. I figured there was a huge number of people in Coventry and the local area who would’ve come to see it but wanted to save their Christmas.”

But if the Omicron variant of Covid was a challenge last year, then economic hardship is the obstacle to overcome this time around, admits Kevin. 
“The one thing I’m nervous about is the cost-of-living crisis, and whether attending the theatre is too much of a luxury when gas bills are going through the roof and schools’ budgets are seriously under pressure, but so far tickets sales are going great.”

Dickens’ tale of greed and charity has arguably never been more pertinent, and the current economic climate is something Kevin is determined to reflect in the production.
“With the cost-of-living crisis and the disparity between rich and poor right now, I think the play is possibly even more relevant than it was last year. And I will be looking at the adaptation to ensure that there are enough of those parallels being drawn.”

As well as those nods to contemporary Britain, this year’s version will be refreshed by featuring five new faces in the seven-strong cast, all of whom will contribute to the direction it takes, according to Kevin.
“I do a huge amount of prep, but usually it all goes in the bin as the actors produce things that are better than I imagined while doodling on a plan of the set! The reason I love working in theatre is the collaborative nature of the process of getting the production together. So yes, we’ve got Paul [Nolan, returning as Scrooge] and one other returnee, but the other five members of the cast are new. It’s not like some West End production where the cast are required to follow the grid and do exactly what their predecessors did; we will be reinventing it properly from scratch in the rehearsal room. 

“I have no doubt that the creativity of the new individuals will spark the creativity of the old individuals, and we will make different decisions about how the thing looks. I’m also revisiting the staging for certain parts of it - things that I think we can improve, make better, make more exciting… but the bottom line is that we want to do a really good story well told, and in an engaging way.”

Rehearsals for the production were just getting under way when we spoke, and actor Paul Nolan was as excited about restarting the creative process as revisiting the iconic role of Ebenezer Scrooge.
“When we entered rehearsals last year,” he recalls, “from day one we knew who was going to be playing which parts, but we didn’t have the meat on the bones. So it was all about working through, on a daily basis, what we could do, what would fit and what we could try out.

“That’s a real strength and a really exciting thing. It’s going to be really good to sit back and watch what evolves [this year] and see how I fit into that, or how the other characters fit into it and so forth. The company, the ensemble, takes ownership of the work - it certainly won’t be a replication of last year, but just what it’s going to be we won’t know.”

What we do know is that the production will stick fairly closely to Dickens’ text.
“One of the reasons I think it was so popular last year, particularly with the schools, was that it’s a faithful adaptation of the Dickens novella,” says Paul. “That’s one of the things that teachers in particular were really pleased with - there was a lot of Dickens there. Frankly, of course there was! He’s a master storyteller - who are we to think we are better than Dickens?!”

That said, Paul believes the production delves even deeper into its core material to try and find out why Scrooge is such a nasty piece of work. 
“I spent some time with Kevin and we did a bit of a journey through that. By reading between the lines and really picking at the text, we were able to get a better understanding as to why. Doing last year’s production, I kind of became immersed in that, and I’ve got an underlying thing almost ready to go. I revisited the novella again recently, and there’s even more there to substantiate it, all of which makes his redemption at the end even more glorious.”

In addition to Coventry-born Paul, the cast are all drawn from the local area and come from diverse backgrounds. Both factors are crucial to Kevin Shaw’s vision for the Albany.
“It’s a vital part, particularly with the number of schools coming,” says Kevin. “On a very basic level, if you don’t see yourself represented on the stage, why would you think that theatre is for you? I think it’s really important - and our responsibility - to ensure that theatre is as inclusive as it can possibly be; that’s the only future for it.”

The production itself has to be great too, of course, and Kevin can’t wait to get started. First-timers are in for a treat, he says, and if you enjoyed it last year, then you’ll enjoy it even more this time around. 
“I don’t want to do spoilers, but there are some definite new bits of staging which I think will create even bigger surprises than last year. I guarantee it’s going to be great.”

A Christmas Carol shows at the Albany Theatre, Coventry, from Saturday 3 to Monday 26 December.

By Steve Adams