Bah! Humbug! Tama takes Scrooge to the airwaves

He most recently directed Opera Australia’s The Love of the Nightingale… But before that Tama Matheson recorded a captivating radio play of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

It’s classic, it’s Christmassy, and it’s so iconic that even the Muppets once did a film version!

In fact, it’s so intertwined in our culture that we rarely connect the dots when exclaiming “Bah! Humbug!” or calling someone a “Scrooge”. But the man we have to thank for these phrases is, of co-urse, British author Charles Dickens, who on December 19, 1843, published a little novella called A Christmas Carol.

We all know how the story goes. In Victorian era England, the character Ebenezer Scrooge turns from being a grumpy, stingy old man into a big softie after receiving visits from the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. (As opposed to the Blackadder version, where Rowan Atkinson actually reverts from being generous to being insulting after a visit from Robbie Coltrane.)

The novella was so beloved that it was very quickly adapted into a play, and has since been made into countless film and television versions, operas, musicals, audio readings, and even graphic novels. It’s also the reason that Sydney-based actor, writer and director Tama Matheson decided to add directing to his bag of tricks. “It’s the first thing that I did as a director – I adapted and directed it six years ago [for 4MBS], and that’s when I first thought I might be able to do this. The play version kicked me off as a director!”

Tama has since gone on to much bigger directorial roles –  in October he directed Richard Mills’ The Love of the Nightingale for Opera Australia, and will next year take on Verdi’s The Force of Destiny for the same company. But he still holds an appreciation for A Christmas Carol, “one of the most brilliant pieces of writing that I know.”

After performing the theatre version over several Christmases in Brisbane, he decided to tackle it as a one-man radio play, taking on the challenge of lending his rich voice to all of the characters. “The great thing about radio is that you really have to make a character out of the voices – it’s entirely up to your vocal prowess. And Scrooge is fantastic because you have to try and contain the whole character just in the voice itself; you have to get into your voice the slightly sharp, spiteful, English nasally-type character, so that immediately the listener will recognise it as the envious, impatient, frustrated figure of Scrooge.”

The 45-minute production is accompanied by sound effects, traditional Christmas carols and classical music, produced by Tama’s older brother Tane. It was created at a fitting time, as this coming February will be the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth.

So, with Christmas just around the corner, does Tama side with Scrooge or with Santa? “I grew up in Germany where all the Christmas festivities come from –  the tree, the lights –  the trappings of Christmas. They still do it there with a kind of magic, so I grew up thinking that Christmas was wonderful!”

The radio play of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, performed by Tama Matheson, will be available for listening from Christmas Eve onwards on 4MBS online, and will be broadcast to South East Queensland on 103.7 FM at midday, Christmas Day.