Every Christmas season since 1997, he has brought to the States his one-man A Christmas Carol, a tour de force in which he depicts 26 characters, some seemingly simultaneously. With only minor costume changes, he becomes waddling and fatuous Mr. Fezziwig, genial nephew Fred, or poor crippled Tiny Tim. Performing at libraries, dinners, and teas, he bounds off the stage to order astonished audience members out of their chairs while he eats from their plates or wraps them in ghostly chains. The room becomes by turns a dreary counting house, a bustling street, or a snowy country lane. His Ghost of Christmas Present is a jolly Yorkshireman, while Bob Cratchit asks whether it is convenient for him to have Christmas Day off in soft Cornish.
Scrooge has a southern English accent, probably London.
It's got that hard edge to it, so I wanted to give Cratchit a very soft voice. Charles Dickens' Bob Cratchit, of course, came from Camden Town, then a poor London suburb where his creator spent the worst part of his childhood. The author's father, John, persistently lived beyond his means, eventually winding up in debtors' prison while young Charles was forced to work in a blacking factory. Although this period of servitude and ill health lasted only six months, it might have been a lifetime. The stench and horrible conditions of the factory would colour his work forever.