Nick Mohammed’s comic take on A Christmas Carol got off to a disastrously bumpy start last month, when its first night performance had to be abandoned amid myriad technical problems.
No such fears for Count Arthur Strong’s take on the Dickens classic, however, as this performance was always going to go chaotically off the rails, given the permanently addled state of mind of our star.
Before the interval, the befuddled ageing thespian takes the role of Charles Dickens himself, at least for as long as he can remember what he’s ‘susposed’ to be doing, rarely more than a few seconds. Setting the scene of the Victorian era without bothering himself with too much research, he stumbles from one digression to the next, offering his tuppence-worth on modern zombie obsessions one minute, going into a reverie about Margaret Atwood on a duck hunt the next.
Many of these detours are delightful, such as reeling off a list of potential thriller novels with terrible titles or going into a Michael Caine impersonation (and, no, not one from the Muppet Christmas Carol). And as always, Steve Delaney’s alter-ego throws up some magnificent malapropisms as he blunders around the point, all while performing with a potent comic mix of pomposity and incompetence.
Arthur seems to get little joy in being on stage, finding it a grinding chore, while getting frustrated by the distractions his own mind creates (although he always manages to blame some imagined interlocutor for putting him off his thread). Delaney has dedicated most of his professional life to this character, and can balance the conflicting internal forces masterfully.
However sometimes – and this feels like sacrilege to say – similar frustrations about a lack of focus can strike the viewer, too, as barely a thread of narrative remains, even when performing the ghostly tale we know so well in the second half.
With its many sections made disjointed by the delivery, a Count Arthur production is essentially a sketch show in which most of the punchlines are variations on the same thing: that a man got confused. It’s testament to the strength of this great comedy creation, and the imaginative writing, that it works as well as it does.
Arthur’s attitude to carrying a one-man show is amusing, as the put-upon ‘old muggins here’ who has no support, And utilising ventriloquists’ dolls adds an extra level of nonsense. By the time we meet Emily Cratchit in the final scene, the fact she is now a bandaged mummy – a prop from the 22-year-old show Count Arthur’s Forgotten Egypt, being redeployed with a Scrooge-like approach to production budgets – seems entirely credible
However it also feels as if some supporting characters wouldn’t go amiss, for his madness to bounce off. A couple of stars do make guest appearances – but on performances prerecorded over Zoom, losing chemistry and timing.
In addition to Count Arthur’s jumbled outpourings there are a few bits of standalone comedy business.
As the real Dickens was a keen amateur magician, we can revel in some of Arthur’s terrible, Cooperesque, tricks as ‘the master of delusion’. And an ending (‘which the crickets are already calling "tacked on"’, the Count observes) offers a drunken take on the 12 Days Of Christmas which is funny, but not as funny as Justin Edwards’ version as Jeremy Lion.
All in, Delaney offers a merry approach to the enduring Christmas yarn, with a few excellent moments, though being torn between loose adherence to the story and absolute chaos (as his alleged ‘farewell’ tour And It's Goodnight From Him was) means this seasonal offering isn’t quite peak Arthur.
• Count Arthur Strong Is Charles Dickens In A Christmas Carol is back at the Bloomsbury Theatre tonight and tours again in late 2025. Dates
