Eastbourne version of A Christmas Carol gets national Christmas Eve audience

A Christmas Carol by Candlelight, by Eastbourne-based Tony Norman and featuring narration by Nicholas Parsons, will be broadcast four times by BBC Radio 4 Extra on Christmas Eve, as part of the station’s Nicholas Parsons Day. Broadcast times are 6am, midday, 6pm and midnight. The programme will then be available on BBC Sounds.

Tony explains: “I produced my musical at the Underground Theatre in November 2015. Nicholas was the first person I approached to be our narrator. I knew his voice would be perfect so I was delighted when he agreed to come down and do the show. It was a short run but the audience reaction was really good. I organised a little party for the cast after our last show. Nicholas was in his 90s so I thought he might like to go straight back to the Grand Hotel where he was staying. He soon put me straight. He told me: ‘If there’s a party, I’m coming!’ He was such a great character and he made time for all the members of the cast at the party, signing autographs and posing for selfies.

“When the party was over I walked Nicholas to his cab and he asked if I could go and see him for coffee at the Grand the next day. I was expecting a relaxed meeting, but Nicholas was really focused. He said he was sure I had something special with A Christmas Carol by Candlelight. He liked the way I’d kept the spirit of the Dickens text in the script and combined that with original songs and classic carols. He said it all flowed so well and I should take it further and he’d be keen to be part of that. His enthusiasm was totally sincere and it meant a lot to me. I came away from the meeting feeling elated. In fact, I had to go for a walk on Eastbourne seafront to calm down!”

Things didn’t run smoothly at first, but Nicholas and Tony were determined not to give up. In 2018 they recorded an album of the show: “We did Nicholas’s narration at a studio near his London home. He was absolutely brilliant. He brought all the characters alive as he told the story of Scrooge. The music was recorded in Eastbourne with local record producers Bruce Pont and Charlie Tipler. The songs are all accompanied by top pianist Mark Edwards from Seaford.

“The plan was to release the album through my music company, but sadly we were unable to do any promotion in 2018 or 2019 due to ill health,” Tony explains. “Nicholas passed away in January 2020. The recordings then sat on the shelf until this year when thanks to help from Nicholas’s widow Annie, the musical found its way to Richard Culver, head of BBC Radio 4 Extra, who said he’d like to use it as part of the station’s Nicholas Parsons Day. I was thrilled and I know Nicholas would have felt the same way. Nicholas would be so happy to know A Christmas Carol by Candlelight is to be aired on BBC Radio 4 Extra. He worked in many areas of show business, but his heart was at the BBC. Nicholas asked me about his narration when we were in the studio, and I told him I loved the way he’d brought all the characters to life. He said people tended to forget he was an actor in the West End in the early days of his career. He drew on all that experience with this heartfelt performance.”