A Christmas Carol With Bells On

Dicken's frequently gritty tales of Victorian England are replaced with a straightforward tale of morality in the 'oh so well-known' A Christmas Carol.

The scene is set with the distant sounds of carriages, horses hooves clip-clopping, and projected images of snow falling, all accompanied by the joyous babble of dozens of schoolchildren. This was the opening night of Northern Ballet's Christmas special, and the excitement was palpable.

Wonderful costumes, great lighting, and a superb set made the narrative flow like a charm. In fact, the set is one of the best I've seen at Leeds Grand - or anywhere for that matter. It is delightfully three-dimensional, providing the performers with plenty of space on the stage, several opportunities in the air, and, further back, showing an iconic skyscape of old London Town. The set could also rapidly shrink down to a more intimate setting whenever Scrooge was being troubled by a ghost.

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• Jonathan Hanks and Saeka Shirai. Photo Tristram Kenton
• Jonathan Hanks and Harry Skoupas. Photo Tristram Kenton
• Jonathan Hanks and Andrew Tomlinson. Photo by Emily Nuttall

All three ghosts were given fabulous costumes. Saeka Shirai as the ghost of Christmas Past, appeared as an ephemeral flash of brilliant white and showed poor Scrooge everything he had done wrong in his life. Harry Skoupas, as the ghost of Christmas Present, showed Scrooge all his current misdemeanours. And Andrew Tomlinson as the ghost of Christmas Yet To Come laid out a vision of all that could go wrong if Scrooge didn't mend his ways.

One of the delights of Northern Ballet's Christmas productions is that they provide scope for a troupe of young dancers from the Northern Ballet Academy. They are a delightful addition to this and to any performance.

As always, the dancers of Northern Ballet themselves were impeccable. Jonathan Hanks, as Scrooge, has the facial expressions and the balletic skills to carry off a role stretching from a grouchy, grumpy, friendless old man to a genial, generous elderly statesman. All that in the course of 2 hours, and he'll do it all again almost every night until 4th January.

The music for this production was written by American composer Carl Davis and recorded at a performance of the Royal New Zealand Ballet in 2014. The large scale of the music would make it difficult - and costly - to perform live without a substantial orchestra and a choir. Nonetheless it is a shame to see a drift away from live music. There's no doubt that a live orchestra adds a significant extra sparkle to a performance.

Northern Ballet's A Christmas Carol is a splendid Christmas production, which will make an absolutely wonderful family occasion for those lucky enough to see it.

Northern Ballet's A Christmas Carol continues at Leeds Grand Theatre until 4th January 2025.