Actors describe the magic, diversity and message in Royal Shakespeare Company's A Christmas Carol

In our second article on the show, which opens on Wednesday (October 26) with Ade Edmondson as Scrooge, actors Giles Taylor (Marley) and Mitesh Soni (Bob Cratchit) talk about this huge production – one with special meaning as the prospect of increased poverty looms among the British people.

To see last week’s behind-the-scenes article, see here.

The show promises all sorts of special effects including a ghost appearing from Scrooge’s bed, a flying carpet, projections, candles that self-ignite and more. It also has a beautiful score and a cast of 24, many playing several characters and including four child actors with disabilities who share the role of Tiny Tim.

Dickens’ story tells the enduring tale of cold-hearted businessman Scrooge, who is visited by three ghosts and finds redemption and compassion over a single Christmas night.

“It’s a massive show. It's such a big cast. Rachel Kavanaugh is a director I've worked with many times and coming back to Stratford - it’s second to none,” said Taylor who did the original RSC production five years ago.

“This is an extraordinary version of the story. It's big, gutsy, provocative, sentimental, beautiful and moving. And very funny. It really has got something going for everyone.

"It's an exhausting show to do because we all play multiple parts so you'll leave the stage and hurl yourself into another costume, come on and do a dance, then run off again and become a miner and next a guest at the Fezziwig ball. There are 24 actors all playing multiple roles and something like 250 costumes.”

"My Marley is quite light on chains – I just have a cash box and a few chains strung around me, partly because of the trick involving me coming on stage through the bed; if I was festooned in chains, it just wouldn't work.”

“We felt the play was incredibly resonant in 2017. Now, it's almost uncomfortably resonant – the austerity and how people are being bounced into poverty in this country,” he said.

In this production writer David Edgar gives Marley a scene towards the end in which he talks to Scrooge.

"I talk about him and me being dead already because a living person resonates with the thousands of people around them - with humanity – and if you shut yourself in your counting house, you're not a member of the human race. Some of the things I say I found quite upsetting because they’re so painfully apt for what's going on now.

“The show is does have all the joys one would hope from Christmas Carol - it's such a cultural benchmark - but the resonances are strong and uncomfortable. And David Edgar, being a very politicised writer, is not afraid of that.

“Dickens was so shocked by a report on child labour and poverty, how their work deformed their bodies or made them go blind depending on what horrific Victorian jobs they were made to do, he wanted to write a political tract but was persuaded this would not be as widely read as a story. And in tackling that story that he also virtually invented modern Christmas,” said Taylor.

“You think of it as being this old miser who learns to be a nice person in the most simplistic terms and actually, when you read the original – and David Edgar goes back to the original in a big way - is it's no pantomime, it's really dark and upsetting and then redemptive at the end which lets everyone off the hook a little. But it's quite an uncomfortable journey.”

Mitesh Soni said describes his first role with the RSC - as Bob Cratchit – as a big responsibility.

"A lot of people have described Cratchit as the heart of the show, the antagonist to Scrooge. It is a big responsibility. It's the first time the production has had a disabled actor playing Tim so adjustments have been made so the children are comfortable with what they're doing with me being their ‘father’.

“There is real diversity itself across the cast. I am South Asian; we've got black people, disabled people and Sunetra (Sarker – the Ghost of Christmas Present) is also South Asian. None of that is really touched on - correctly; it doesn't matter. Victorian London did have all of that. We have varying range of disabilities and abilities, race and inclusion in what would have been seen then. The story is universal.

“The Cratchits’ struggle is very real but they are still trying to make it as best as it can be for the children,” said Soni.

Soni and Emma Pallant (Mrs Cratchit) have had to rehearse with three teams of children and four Tims in order to ensure the youngsters were totally comfortable with what is happening.

“They're all such brilliant children and they really are enjoying it; the Tim's are enjoying it. We’ve been working on how I carry them because for some of them it’s different. But they're loving that the fact it can be done and nobody feels like they're missing out.

"Regardless of what Emma and I might be doing in our scenes as the Cratchits’ Mum and Dad, it's making sure that they're comfortable – putting the attention on them so they're the ones that get to shine. They’ll break your hearts.”