Cratchit, Alexander Knott’s spin-off from A Christmas Carol that picks up the story of Scrooge’s impoverished clerk, has just opened at London’s Park Theatre, where the live premiere production continues until 8 January 2022. Check out the trailer plus first-look photos of Olivier Award winner John Dagleish in action. Time to get booking!
Cratchit, written and directed by Alexander Knott, reimagines the well-loved tale of Ebenezer Scrooge from the perspective of Bob Cratchit, with Cratchit played by John Dagleish, who previously played the same character in Jack Thorne’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol at the Old Vic in 2017.
As a hard frost descends on London Town, Bob Cratchit gets his own visit from the spirits of Christmastime. Catapulted forward through the years, the poorly paid clerk is shown a bleak vision of the future world: inequality and strife perpetuate, while the gap between the 1% and everyone else grows wider.
Cratchit is a darker look at Dickens’ tale of redemption, a call to arms against injustice and rallying cry for solidarity and fortitude.
Cratchit premiered online under the title December at the Old Red Lion Theatre in during the winter lockdown of 2020. The play captured the troubled image of the future world shown to Bob Cratchit and fleshed out Dickens’ famously upbeat character, showing him to be a stoic but flawed man soldiering on against the odds. It has now been reworked for its live premiere this Christmas.
Dagleish is joined in the cast by Freya Sharp. Movement by Zöe Grain, set and costume design by Emily Bestow, lighting design by Chloe Kenward, sound design and composition by James Demaine and Samuel Heron.
CRATCHIT playing now @ParkTheatre! https://t.co/VfuLYrs5ca
Trailer: @CFlintphoto pic.twitter.com/FQDhyvbR9R
— Alexander Knott (@AlexKnott95) December 8, 2021
I’m so glad I caught #CratchitThePlay at @ParkTheatre having recently seen @oldvictheatre‘s #OVChristmasCarol. @AlexKnott95 has written a fascinating companion which surely would have Dickens himself reevaluating his view on Bob as ‘not being a man of strong imagination’. pic.twitter.com/mMMjl1tnmm
— Terri Paddock (@TerriPaddock) December 9, 2021
Show photos
Production photography by Charles Flint.
