'A Christmas Carol' starring Patrick Stewart, a grim holiday treat

There are more versions of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol than can be counted on two full sets of hands and feet. It has been filmed countless times with actors in the leading role as distinguished as Alistair Sims, George C. Scott, Reginald Owen, and as unknown or forgotten as Marc McDermott (way back in 1910, with the screen’s first Frankenstein’s Monster as Bob Cratchit). A Christmas Carol has been cast with Mice, Smurfs, Muppets, Mr. Magoo and friends, and The Flintstones. A Christmas Carol has been animated, set to music, modernized and satirized.

Everyone has their favorite version, often more than one. A Christmas Carol captures the spirit of the Christmas season so well that it is always welcome at a holiday party. Arguably, the fuzzier, funnier versions make for more cheer, but if one is willing to forgo instant joy, then one should consider the 1999 version featuring Patrick Stewart.

The 1999 made for Turner Network Television version of A Christmas Carol is a hauntingly beautiful film. Patrick Stewart has a presence that defies easy analysis. The richness, the depth of his performance is mesmerizing. He transforms Ebenezer Scrooge into a very real person, one whose pain is all too believable as is his transformation.

Here is a telling quote from Flick Filosopher, ”Right from the opening, little details jump out here, like the scritch scritch of the pen as Scrooge signs the death register at the funeral of Jacob Marley (Bernard Lloyd). It's as if, the body barely cold, Scrooge is already writing off his longtime friend and business partner -- this is a man with a heart of stone. When he stands over Marley's grave and bites out his farewell – ‘We thrived on the idleness of others’ -- it's not just a promise that Scrooge will continue to do so but a bit of a reproof, too, as if Marley's death were hardly an excuse for the man to be slacking off like this.”

A Christmas Carol has a delightful cast with Richard E. Grant as Bob Cratchit, Saskia Reeves as Mrs. Cratchit, Dominic West as Fred Scrooge and Joel Grey clearly having fun as The Ghost of Christmas Past. Directed with understated flair by David Hugh Jones, ably scripted by Peter Barnes, the 1999 version of A Christmas Carol is arguably quite faithful to the original tale by Charles Dickens. Because of its stern, cold beginning and subsequent air of grim foreboding, the payoff, the transformation of Scrooge into a man capable of experiencing and sharing joy and happiness, is intense and simply wonderful.

Patrick Stewart has delighted audiences for more than a decade with a one man show of A Christmas Carol. In many cities in America and England, audiences have rediscovered the joy of the written word through Stewart’s reading. His performance has been captured on an audio book released by Simon and Schuster. A review by The Washington Post is worth noting, “Not only is Patrick Stewart wonderful, but this is surely one of the best performances of A Christmas Carol ever recorded....By sheer energy and dramatic skill, Stewart invests this story with not merely life, but freshness, excitement and wonder.”