A Christmas Carol

[AlecOrAlonzo]

They're mumbling.

Ffs.

They can hear it three houses away. The telly is up at 11. Still can't hear a damn thing.

Is this what pay my tv licence fee for?!

I don't mind the departures from the original Dickens - rehashing the same lines for the 1000th time would be pointless. I also liked the scenes flashing out Scrooge's childhood.

In order to make the sort of money that Scrooge and Marley did, they would certainly have had to exploit and hurt people along the way, so I feel that is true to the picture Dickens was painting.

However, if (as is very strongly implied at this point) he demanded sex from Mrs Cratchit in exchange for the money for Tim's operation, they've made him irredeemable.

Looking at numbers in a book and deciding to scrimp on safety in his mines is deeply wrong, but the suffering isn't happening in front of him. He's not having to inflict the cruelty in person.

Having sex with an unwilling (crying?) woman lying underneath, a mother who has asked you for help to save her child's life, that is another degree of immorality altogether. There is no way that a Scrooge who did that could become like a second father to Tim.

Maybe they intend the ending to be less happy than the original? It would be consistent with what we've seen so far.

But Scrooge and Marley are meant to be moneylenders and the baddies in ACC are business people. I actually think that is a highly resonant and relevant message for the 21st century . It is very easy for us to ignore mining and workhouses as part of the exploitation of 'them days' and then miss any contemporary moral message. Whenever I read the text , I always think how people are still exploited by moneylenders and big business. For the many not the few, and all that...

I do like the original take on things but Scrooge and the money for sex is a bit much. It's good that we've seen why his like it though.
The fires and deaths at the mines remind me of Grenfell : ( so sad to say . Money before safety. All very true ; some people sell their souls to become rich.
I hope Scrooge dies in this or something. He doesn't deserve redemption at all.
Maybe he'll leave all his money to little Bob.

I meant to write Tim not bob!
Oops. Not paying attention.

Yes it has echos of Grenfell .

I do hope what he requires of Mrs Cratchit isn't sex related. Even though it undoubtedly went on and still goes on, it's a terrible deed that can never be redeemed.

I'm not hopeful that the writers will see exploiting a desperate woman for sex as the irredeemable act that most of us would, though. I haven't seen much of Peaky Blinders but I did watch Taboo, and there was a tendency to portray prostitutes as canny, hard-as-nails businesswomen who just do what needs to be done and aren't affected by it. I know this is a different scenario but I don't think male writers always see sexual exploitation through the same lens of horror that women often do.

It made me depressed the threat of rape, a school master pevert and the killing of a mouse such Christmas joy. I'm dreading to think what the children in the cloak of Christmas Present will behold.

So I don't feel he can de redeemed even if he turned happy clappy. The only way I thought is if he could go back in time and marry and have a family. As they haven't stuck to Dickens why start now ?

Ah I'm glad it's not me going deaf! Usually tv is on about 15 - had to turn it up to about 30, but then the loud bit were too loud!

I watch everything now with subtitles! It's the only way to beat the volume up and down thing that drives me mad.

To the the posters who say the words can be so totally changed because it's the 'same old lines', do you feel the same about Shakespeare? There have obviously been countless renditions of Hamlet, Macbeth etc but the one thing that remains generally intact (when the title is the same!) is the script. It seems Shakespeare is sacrosanct : Dickens, not so much.

The M R James looks good, definitely going to watch that, his ghost stories are brilliant

The 1982 version is on C4 at the mo. A bit saccharine but already more words of Dickens in 10 minutes than in two episodes of Peakin Fuckin Christmas !

Yes, that’s version is good as Scrooge gives as good as he gets then the ghosts appear.
There is a version of The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James on BBC 4 tonight, it’s updated to the 20s, looks good. It is straight after the MR James story and right before a documentary about MR James.

At this rate with all the good stuff on , I won’t be sleeping tonight, between the stuff being on 2 hours later here than the UK, and being scared, dogs will be sleeping beside me tonight!

We made it 2/3 through the first episode of this and just gave up. So tedious and boring, put the muppets version on instead!

We usually love a good BBC mini series/drama so very disappointed. Between this an Sanditon I’m starting to get less excited when I see new shoes advertised!

*Shows

I get less excited too when it comes to new shoes, or shows!

I thought the second episode wasn’t quite as mumbly, was it just me?

I’m a bit about the thought that Scrooge might be asking Mrs C for sex in exchange for his cash. Not sure I’ll feel quite as overjoyed about him learning the error of his ways at the end if he’s got that in his past tbh. Is Mrs C going to be expected to just accept he’s changed and will be a jolly part of their lives from now on?

But let’s see what happens...

Do you all hate Clueless because it's based on Emma rather than a faithful rendering? Or West Side Story on the basis that Romeo and Juliet didn't really live in New York?

Plenty of classic authors (including Shakespeare) are given this sort of treatment, where large elements of story and text are changed to give a fresh take on the basic underlying story. Why not Dickens?

The problem seems to be that it's still called 'A Christmas Carol', so people have tuned in expecting it to be 100% unaltered. Maybe they should have given it a slightly different name.

there was a tendency to portray prostitutes as canny, hard-as-nails businesswomen who just do what needs to be done and aren't affected by it

Mrs Cratchit isn't portrayed like this though. Seven years after whatever happened, she is turning away from her husband in bed at Christmas, and obviously haunted whatever it is.

If this is how the story goes, they really have made him irredeemable, any future friendliness with the Cratchit family will be utterly unbelievable (in a way that wouldn't be the case if he'd been just a run of the mill tyrannical boss rather than a rapist).

It reminds me a bit of Back To The Future, where we see Buff attempt to rape Marty's mother, then years later he is hanging around with the family doing odd jobs for them.

Male scriptwriters have absolutely no clue. No clue at all.

There was a modernised version of ACC on ITV fifteen years or so ago - Ross Kemp was Scrooge, Belle was a nurse, and Ignorance and Want were a brother and sister who sold The Big Issue. I thought it was great, and I show it to my classes fairly regularly.

I gave up on this version half way through episode 1 - turned it back on last night to see Scrooge's father decapitating a rodent. Sometimes, less can be so much more. The scene in the book where Fan comes to get Scrooge (who has been left alone at school over Christmas) and says, "Father's so much kinder than he used to be that home's like heaven!" hints at cruelties so effectively.

The title absolutely is the problem. Although, yes, I do hate Clueless. But, as you say, it is not called Emma!

I'm enjoying it and looking forward to the final episode

I'm not bothered how true to the book it is, or not as the case may be.

Just watched episode 2 on catch up.Whatever happens on Christmas Day is likely to be horrible, I think, even if it is not a straightforward seduction.