Like an iron frost that grips a country graveyard, whose icy fist is both terrible and exquisitely beautiful, Neil Bartlett's production gets right to the frozen heart of Dickens's classic Christmas tale. It is so unsentimental and hard that it is almost painful. As a result, the melting resolution of the story, when Scrooge opens his heart to the world, is all the more quietly moving.
This is the same stripped-down version that premiered at this venue seven years ago. But Bartlett is now older, maybe sadder and certainly braver as a director. Those who associate Dickens with festive scenes of jolly fat people having fun in a cheerful London should avoid this production, and the very youngest members of the family may find it puzzlingly sombre in tone for a Christmas treat. This is one of those rare festive offerings for which no adult will need the excuse of a child in tow in order to book a ticket.
Robin Whitmore's ravishing black-and-white design, which looks like a makeshift pop-up Victorian paper theatre, sets the tone for Scrooge's world, a place that appears bleached of all colour. This is a man whose life and soul are lit up by a single naked light bulb that he parsimoniously carries between office and home. There is never any doubt that what is at stake here is his very salvation, as his past and present life and his potential future are revealed to him by the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future - the latter towering menacingly high above the stage like a glittering medieval warrior.
Bartlett rightly concentrates on Scrooge rather than the Cratchits; he knows that less is always so much more. The spareness of the production is enriched by Dickens's luscious language and a cappella Christmas carols, whose unearthly beauty is threaded through the evening like a ribbon.
This is very much an ensemble piece, but in Tim Pigott-Smith the production has the perfect Ebenezer Scrooge. More fool than villain, Pigott-Smith is never ingratiating, and he succeeds in making your heart crack for a man it is impossible to really like.
· Until January 4. Box office: 020-8741 2311.
