Well, it is being written by the creator of Peaky Blinders, so.
You know. Makes sense.
It’s not long now before the reboot of Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol lands back on our screens for the festive period, and although we have absolutely been lamenting the prevalence of the reboot lately, this one does actually look class.
Written by Stephen Knight (creator of Peaky Blinders, FYI) and starring none other than Guy Pearce, the new A Christmas Carol is a gritty, dark, and equally disturbing take on the nineteenth century classic.
True to form, it follows Ebenezer Scrooge, a man who is cheap enough to ensure that the conditions his workers are slaving away in is far below acceptable, leading to their eventual perishing in a gas blast.
Knight told The Sun that he didn’t want to rewrite the story entirely, but weave in narratives that Dickens maybe would have included if he had been alive today.
“I went through the story and looked for things that were implied,” he said. “I imagined if Dickens had the freedom to deal with issues, what would he have done?”
But it’s not just the death, destruction, and dire circumstances that make this reboot a little bit grimmer than the festive alternative – but the technology too.
When Jacob Marley (played by Stephen Graham) returns via ghost form to visit Scrooge, he is missing half of his face – specifically, his lower jaw.
Grim.
Graham himself said that although the scene looks great, getting into character as a man who has no lower jaw… was not.
“It looked brilliant, but on the day I had to pull lots of funny faces with the director saying ‘Just pretend your jaw has fallen off,'” he said.
Knight announced that the reboot had been completed earlier this year, stating: “A Christmas Carol is done. And is in the can, and is bloody marvellous. I mean I would say that, but Guy Pearce is brilliant. Stephen Graham is brilliant, and it looks quite amazing.”
Can’t wait, yeah.
A Christmas Carol begins on December 22 on BBC One at 9pm and continues at the same time for three consecutive days.
