Just enjoyed Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol this evening at the Jericho Arts Centre. The familiar tale from Marley’s perspective. It was a well acted, spooky, and minimalist production. Satisfying and fit for a family that wants to get into the Spirit of the season.

Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol is at Jericho Arts Centre until Dec. 18. For tickets, call 604-224-8007 or go to brownpapertickets.com. 

“Jacob Marley was dead.” In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol we know that Ebenezer Scrooge’s business partner is “most sincerely dead,” but we don’t know why he comes back on Christmas Eve to haunt Scrooge’s bedchamber. What’s in it for Jacob Marley?

That’s where playwright Tom Mula begins: Marley is in the Counting House, a sort of antechamber to the next world, where he awaits his everlasting fate. The Record Keeper (David C. Jones) offers him a deal: to avoid going to Hell, Marley must reform Scrooge, “the only man worse than I,” claims Marley.

Accompanied and guided by the Bogle — a hobgoblin or ghost — Marley visits Scrooge’s past, present and future in his efforts to redeem him. On their journey we learn about Marley’s own childhood and discover why he turned out as warped as he did.

Source: Jacob Marley retells Christmas Carol from the other side