Friday 3 December 2021

THEATRE REVIEW: Eric's Christmas Carol - The New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-Under-Lyme.


Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella “A Christmas Carol” has spawned more film and stage adaptations than there is space to list here. The Muppets’ Christmas Carol and Blackadder’s Christmas Carol spring to mind as personal favourites. To the pantheon of stars who have graced the role of Scrooge over the last 178 years or so we can now add… Eric.

Eric (David Graham) appears as Ericneezer Scrooge, the mean and merciless proprietor of a music shop in Stoke-on-Trent in 1967. It’s Christmas Eve and Scrooge is going about his business, ripping off customers and being unkind to his loyal assistant Nobby Crotchet (Joe Sterling). Nobby’s woes are compounded by the fact he has ten children to feed including Tiny Tim, who appears as a disembodied voice from a teapot!

Of course the great thing about setting the story in a music shop is that every now and again someone wants to try one of the instruments out – a cue for a song, in other words. For those who don’t know the Eric shows, these musical interludes are part of the magic mixture which brings fans back year after year.

After work that evening, Ericneezer is visited by the ghost of his former business partner, Bob Marley, accompanied by ghostly sounds from off-stage (Scrooge: “What are those noises?” Marley: “They’re the Wailers!”) who warns him that three spirits are to visit him in the night. Alone and scared, Scrooge calls for his housekeeper, Mrs. MacSpreader (Laura Sheppard) who appears in a saucy maid’s outfit and convinces no one with her explanation that she is too busy caring for an elderly relative to keep him company as he awaits his ghostly visitors. In a script littered with double-entendres Mrs. MacSpreader gets some of the best lines: “well, my knees are tired and aching, but knees apart, I’m excellent!”.

The three spirits appear in their appointed order, led by the Spirit of Christmas Pissed who takes Ericneezer back to Fuzzywig’s Works’ Christmas Do in 1955, enlivened by songs from the era. The cast of this show could do very well as a band in their own right, turning their talents to a range of feelgood numbers from across the decades.

Eric’s Christmas Carol can hardly be accused of sticking religiously to the text of Dickens’ original. I do not remember the Spirit of Christmas Future ripping off his black robes to reveal a shiny pink one-piece disco outfit underneath (the Future in this case being 1978) before launching into a song in any other version of the story, for instance. It’s obvious from start to finish that everyone in the cast is having at least as much fun as the audience. The show pokes fun at everything, including at itself with a number of jokes about how they can only afford a small cast. Tunstall, one of the six towns that makes up the city of Stoke-on-Trent, comes in for some particular stick, inviting a good-natured jeer from sections of the audience.

It would be wrong of me to reveal whether or to what extent Ericneezer is a changed man as a result of his encounters, but it’s hardly a spoiler to say that it all ends with a joyful sing-song with the cast and audience alike joining in and having a great time.

One lovely touch is that, unable to perform during lockdown, David Graham wrote a novel about Eric, “Eight Days A Week” which he is selling to raise money for a local hospice. So far it has raised over £3,500.

For many people in North Staffordshire, it isn’t really Christmas until they’ve seen the Eric show. If you haven’t experienced this unique brand of festive frivolity for yourself yet, why not come along to the New Vic and join in?

Eric’s Christmas Carol runs until 11th December at the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme.

Reviewer - Ian Simpson
on - 1.12.21


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