2020 Christmas Carol

2020 Christmas Carol
January 9, 2021 Goodrow Productions
In News

Goodrow Productions’ Stuart Goodwin and Al Rowe set themselves the near impossible task of producing a short film of Charles’ Dickens “A Christmas Carol” in less than a month. They are no strangers to the story having staged several performances in recent years at Lichfield’s Samuel Johnson’s birthplace and other venues.

Due to lockdown and the pandemic, finding opportunities to be creative has been tough and so the team have turned to green screen to create a short film of Stave 1 building on earlier works such as Jack and the Beanstalk earlier this year. The films are premiering on themonkman YouTube channel and can be seen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trr37Okat08&list=PLeP90CB0L0XqcY1LBwFA9occoEOIDZDBt

“Due to legal restrictions the pool of actors we could use was basically my family and long term artistic partner Stuart Goodwin who is in our support bubble” said Al who plays Marley in this film.

Al’s youngest son who calls himself The Monk Man or Quin [to protect his identity] was due to play Tiny Tim for an outside production of A Christmas Carol for fellow Lichfield actor Chris Buckle. This was cancelled due to Covid-19. To avoid disappointment we set about making this film using found assets on YouTube and a green screen.

The film also features locally well known young actor Zephan Rowe, Al’s oldest son as Scrooge’s Nephew. Both Stuart who plays Scrooge and Al have busy full time jobs and so this has been produced by working some very late nights. They hope to complete the remaining staves if time allows but part 1 shows just what can be achieved with no budget and the desire to create and perform against all the odds.

Both Stuart and Al have worked a lot with recently deceased former World Town Crier champion Ken Knowles who was well known as our town crier and many Shakespeare in the Park productions through the years. This film is dedicated to Ken’s memory. Please support our local artists and please watch and enjoy this film!