A Christmas Carol - A Reflection of a Golden Age

John Leech Marley's Ghost

Source Wikimedia Commons

 Northern Ballet  A Christmas Carol Leeds Grand Theatre, 31 Dec 2024

Although I read in Dance and Dancers about a performance at the Royal Northern College of Music by a new company called Northern Dance Theatre when I was an undergraduate at St. Andrews, it was only in 1987 that I saw them for the first time.  I could not have had a better introduction because it was Gillian Lynne's A Simple Man with Christopher Gable as L S Lowry and Moira Shearer as the artist's mother.

They were two ballet heroes from my childhood.  Shearer had retired before I took an interest in ballet though clips and photos of her remained long afterwards.  Gable, on the other hand, was one of the biggest stars in the 1960s when I started to attend the ballet.  I saw him several times and admired him greatly.

At about the same time as I saw A Simple Man or perhaps shortly afterwards Gable was appointed Artistic Director of the company now known as Northern Ballet.  As I said in my review of Moriconi and Gable's Romeo and Juliet on 5 April 2024, "[s]ome of my favourite works were created while Gable was the Artistic Director of the company and I have always regarded that time as a golden age."  I added that it gave me great pleasure to see Romeo and Juliet again and that I very much looked forward to seeing A Christmas Carol again in November.

I actually saw it on the last day of the year and I was not disappointed.  We had an excellent cast:

• Jonathan Hanks was Scrooge
• Joseph Taylor was Young Scrooge
• Dominique Larose was Belle
• Harris Beattie was Bob Cratchit 
• Jun Ishii was Scrooge's nephew
• Sarah Chun was the nephew's wife
• Bruno Serraclara was Mr Fezziwig, and
• Amber Lewis was Mrs Dezziwig,

The rest of the cast and indeed the casts of the other performances in Leeds are here.   For those who do not know the ballet or even Dickens's novella, the role of each of those characters is introduced on the Christmas Carol Characters web page and the synopsis is on the Christmas Carol Story page,  There are some lovely videos and photos.   Lez Brotherston's designs were as fresh as ever as was Carl Davis's score.

I have waited a long time to see this show again.   The company danced to packed houses most nights in Leeds.   I hope it will keep its place in the repertoire.