Dionysus Theatre

Dionysus Theatre bring A Christmas Carol by Candlelight to a number of intimate settings on tour this Christmas.

Robert Tremayne, artistic director and founder, has adapted the show and will be playing Scrooge, with Vicky Newman directing a nine-actor company, combining ensemble storytelling and Victorian carols.

Dates coming up are: November 21 – St Symphorian’s, Durrington; November 28 – St Peter’s, Petersfield; December 13 – St Michael and All Angels, Brighton; December 19 – St Mary de Haura, Shoreham; and December 20 – the Barn Theatre at Fishers Farm, Wisborough Green. Tickets on dionysus-theatre.co.uk

“We started as a company back in 2021,” Robert says. “We were a group of actors who had worked together before and then the pandemic happened and we couldn't see each other. We were a group of friends looking for an outlet. We would meet online and have zoom read-throughs of plays. After that, when we were able to meet up again, we did Chekhov's The Seagull. There was a lovely place in Brighton that has gone now but which was our original nest. We did three productions in one year. We did that for a couple of years and then we thought we could take this out on the road and take it out of Brighton. We went back to The Seagull. We knew that it worked and we toured that one during 2023. And then we did The Woman In White in 2024. That went down well. It's such a wonderful story. And then we changed tack a bit last year and went for Noel Coward and we did Private Lives on tour. It was just five of us in the cast, and that's the way that we work best, I think, as a small ensemble. There are no prima donnas. We just work together, and it was lovely to do something different and to do a comedy.

“This year we decided to go back to our roots and go back to intimate venues and think of something that works on a smaller scale. And who doesn't love A Christmas Carol? It's an easy bet. It's a classic, and it's been done in so many different versions.

“There are nine of us in total. We've got the narrator that keeps us on track but pretty much everyone in the cast plays two or three roles each. I'm blown away by my cast. I see them on stage one moment as one person and then on stage just a bit later as someone else. They're incredible.

“I am playing Ebenezer Scrooge, and what is most fun about playing him is you get to see him in the first half when he is an absolute miser but then the most rewarding thing is the second half where he is redeemed. He is the opposite of me. I absolutely love Christmas, and it's great fun to play him when he's jumping around and happy and realising that he has got a second chance.”

As for whether it's a ghost story or not, Robert says it is a psychological thriller: “There is only one real ghost, and that's the ghost of Jacob Marley. The rest are spirits. A ghost is someone that has lived and comes back taking the form of that person, but the spirits are to show him just that, the spirit of Christmas. But in our version they take the form of people that he knows. They're not just faceless beings and I think that gives it an extra layer.

“But it is a psychological thriller. It is all deeply personal. These are not just random encounters. He has to watch all these awful moments of his past life being played back at him. He is having to watch all the moments that are not the proudest moments of his life!”