Scrooge

They Say...

Review by William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

Screenwriter and songwriter Leslie Bricusse's 1970 movie Scrooge, a musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, was not particularly well received at the time of its release, but, like many holiday entertainments, managed to maintain perennial interest, and more than two decades later, Bricusse further adapted it to the stage, writing an additional handful of songs in the process. As such, the theater version of Scrooge is a more formidable musical work, and, in its initial 1992 production, which opened in Birmingham, England, but failed to move to the West End, it boasted much improved casting. The film had starred non-singer Albert Finney in the title role, but the stage version marked Bricusse's reunion with his old partner Anthony Newley, with whom he had written the internationally successful musicals Stop the World -- I Want to Get Off and The Roar of the Greasepaint -- The Smell of the Crowd. Newley did not collaborate with Bricusse on the book or songs for Scrooge, but he certainly knew his way around Bricusse's material. All of this should have boded well, and it can be said that the original Birmingham cast album of Scrooge is an improvement over the 1970 movie soundtrack album; it is more complete and better sung. That said, it still isn't one of Bricusse's more memorable scores. The storyline is the familiar one of Ebenezer Scrooge proclaiming, "Bah, humbug!" during the Christmas season until his attitude is changed by a series of ghosts, and that dictates some very predictable songs such as Scrooge's "I Hate Christmas" (called "I Hate People" in the movie), contrasted with the more positive sentiments expressed by the ghosts, notably Jon Pertwee's Marley in "Make the Most of This World" (called "See the Phantoms" in the movie), and "I Like Life," sung by the Ghost of Christmas Present (Stratford Johns). And there is a suitably uplifting conversion number for Scrooge at the end called "I'll Begin Again." But rarely does Bricusse go beyond the obvious, one exception being the new patter song "The Minister's Cat," a sort of party game of a song that has no particular connection to the story, but certain enlivens it. Newley, who was Scrooge's age, past 60, sounds vocally diminished, but he may be performing in character; the surrounding cast is considerably more energetic. The real drawback to Scrooge isn't in the performances, it's in the work itself. Bricusse may have been aiming for a cross between Lionel Bart's Dickens adaptation Oliver! and his own earlier shows, but the result is not distinctive.