A Christmas Carol: The Radio Play; Part 1

From Cincinnati, Ohio, the WVXU stations proudly present Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. This immortal Christmas classic stars David Edwards as Scrooge, Greg Procaccino as Marley and Bob Allen as the narrator with original music composed by Chris Dahlgren. A Christmas Carol is produced by Dr. James C. King and directed by Francis Keogh and David Edwards. And now Act one of Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Marley was dead to begin. There is no doubt whatever about the register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker and the chief more Scrooge signed and Scrooge's name was good upon anything he put his hand to.

Old Marley was dead as a doornail. Scrooge knew he was dead. Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole friend, his soul more. But Scrooge was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral and solemnized it with an undoubted bargain. Tight fisted hand, the was through a squeeze, squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old cement, no warmth could warm him, no cold could chilly, no wind that blew was more bitter than he. But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he designed to edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance. Once upon a time of all the good days of the year upon a Christmas Eve, all Scrooge sat busy in his counting house. It was cold, bleak, biting, foggy weather, and the city clocks had only just

struck four. But it was quite dark already. The door to the counting house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who was copying letters in a dismal little settled by a small fire of one coal. Come in. A merry Christmas, Uncle Scrooge. God save you. Bah humbug, Christmas humbug, uncle, you don't mean that. I'm sure I do. Merry Christmas. What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough. Come then, uncle. What right have you to be dismal. What reason have you to be gloomy? You're rich enough humbug. Don't be cross uncle. What else can I be when I live in such a world of fools as this? Out upon a merry Christmas. What is Christmas time to you? What a time for paying bills and money. You don't have a time for finding yourself a year older and not an hour richer.

If I had my will, every idiot who goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of Holly through his heart. Uncle, nephew, keep Christmas in your own way and let me keep it in mine. But you don't keep it. Let me leave it alone then. Much good may do you much good. Has it ever done you? There are many things which have brought me good, which haven't made me a prophet and therefore uncle. Though it's never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good and will do me good. And I say God bless it and God bless you. Good fellow. Merry Christmas. Let me hear another sound from you, Mr. Cratchit, and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your job. Don't be angry, uncle. Come dine with us tomorrow. Good afternoon. But Uncle, why can't we be friends? Good afternoon. I'm sorry with all my heart to find you so resolute.

But I will keep my Christmas humor to the last. So Merry Christmas, Uncle. Good afternoon and happy New Year. Now there's a fine one 15 shillings a week, a wife and family talking about a merry Christmas, but Rahmberg gamein. Scrooged Marlee's, I believe, have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge or Mr. Marley, Mr. Marley has been dead seven years. He died seven years ago this very night. Oh, well, at this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge, it's more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute. Many thousands are in want of common necessities. Are there no prisons, plenty of prisons and the union warehouses, are they still in operation while they are still? I wish I could say they are not. The treadmill in the poor are in full vigor

then. Both very busy, sir. Oh, I was afraid from what you said at first that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course. I am very glad to hear it under the impression that they scarcely furnished Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude. A few of us are endeavoring to raise a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink and means of war. We choose this because it is a time of all others when what is keenly felt in abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for? Nothing. Oh, you wish to be anonymous then? I wish to be left alone. Since you asked me what I wish, that is my answer. I help to support the prisons and the workhouses. Those who are badly off must go there. Many can't go there. Many would rather die if they would rather die than they had better do it and decrease the surplus population. Good afternoon, sir. Good day. Christmas, huh?

Mr. Scrooge, and you you'll want all day tomorrow, I suppose, if quite convenient, sir. No, it is not convenient and it's not fair if I were not to pay you tomorrow. You'd think yourself mighty used, wouldn't you? Yes, sir. And you don't think me used when I pay a day's wages for no work. It's only once a year, sir, for excuse for breaking a man's pocket every 25th of December. But I suppose you must have the whole day. We hear all the earlier next morning. Indeed, sir. It's after five o'clock, sir, and I will be on my way. A merry Christmas to you, sir. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Scrooge took his usual melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tableau

and having read all his newspapers and bankers book. He went home. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy set of rules. Building was old enough now and dreary enough for nobody lived in it, but. Ms. Address addresses God's own saints, Christmas Eve is a strong lock that keeps them from my door. Or at his door, knocking on dress too high for that forced. Mali, it's not about toys to his face on the door. Jacob. Itemized nothing more, just a door humbug. Up Guerrouj went up the stairs, preparing a candle for his night table, not carrying a button, but it's been very dark.

Darkness is cheap and Scrooge liked it. But before he went into his chambers, he walked through the rooms to see that all was in order. The face on the door was still clear in his mind. Sitting room, bedroom table, nobody under the sofa, nobody under the bed, and nobody in the closet. And then, quite satisfied, he closed his door and locked himself in a double locked himself in, which was not his custom. Then secured against surprise, he put on his dressing gown, his slippers, a nightcap and sat down before the fire as he threw back his head in the chair. His glance happened to rest upon a small bell that hung in the room. What's happening? That horrible clanking noise, which sounds as if it's just below. Now it's in the hole, not tied at all. Oh, no. Still, I think it speaks to coming.

Spruill. Through the door, I know, on East Coast and face the very same valley I can see clearly through you. What do you want to be? Who are you? Who are you? That life. I was shocked. Jacob, can you can you sit down? I can do it then. L don't believe. I don't. What evidence do I have of my reality? Beyond that said, since I don't know why do you doubt your senses. Because a little thing affects them. A like disordered.

The stomach makes them cheat. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a proper bastard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are. Mercy, great cooperation. Why do you trouble me? Why do you spirits walk the earth and why do they come to me? It is required of every. Within minutes, we'll come back and try to find. And if that spirit goes forth, I've got to get back to. Due to the wonderful world and we just watched it and not share, I think you are changing. Tell me why I went to church.

I forged in my. Bag of cash box. The box matches each and every Einsteinium. By and large, Jacob, Jacob Marley, tell me more, speak to me, Jacob. I have nothing to give me. It comes from the region's happiness and Scrooge is conveyed by that many stars to that. I can't tell you all I would give them what is permitted to me. I can not rest. I can not stay. I cannot go anywhere where a journey is like before me. You were always a good man of business, Jacob.

Oh, all right. It was my faith. And, of course, when I was five. Charity, that is where all my. The dealings of my trade were off with a drop of water and a comprehensive ocean of my. This time of the year, I am Jacob, I'm afraid that I will, I will. But don't be too hard upon me. I would. You define your mission that you can see. I have sat in the dressing room beside you many, many a day, and while there's no part of Lebanon. I am here tonight to warn you that you'll have a chance and hope to sleep in

my feet, a chance and hope that you will. Always a good friend to me. Thank you. Be haunted by the spirit. Is that the chance and hope you have mentioned, Jacob? I'd rather not without that visit. You can read about this tomorrow night when the death. Oh, well, couldn't I take them all at once and have it over? I could expect the second on the next night at the stroke of one, that third upon the next night when the power of two ceased to vibrate. Not to save me no more. And look out for your own sake. You remember what has passed between us. My time is gone.

Thank you. Please wait. I beg you. Give me the. The window, Jacob, Jacob, the window for Jacob. Oh, yeah, it's filled with phantoms. Wandering ghosts, spirits, all in chains like Jacob. And I have no, you know, my history. They are chained. No, no. Six.

So it was faster when I went to bed, why it isn't possible that I could have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It isn't possible that anything happened to the son who's just 12. No, no. It can't be even possible. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside by a happy Scrooge, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew. As close to it as I am to you. It was a strange child like. It was a tunic of purest white and held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, its dress was trimmed with summer flowers. Are you? The spirit was coming was foretold to me.

I am the ghost of Christmas past, long past. The things that you will see with me are shadows of the things that have been. They will have no consciousness of us. What brings you here? Your welfare rise and walk with me. Scrooge, we have arrived. Spirit, the city has vanished the road with fields on either side. Good heavens, I was bred in this place. I was a boy here. Oh, I know the smell of the air. It makes me think your lip is trembling so much. And what does that have on your cheek? Just a blemish or a scratch. Take me where you will. You recollect the way I remember it, I could walk it blindfold.

Strange to have forgotten it for so many years. This place, every gate post entry. I know it. The town, the bridge, the church and the river. It's Christmas here, isn't it? Yes, Scrooge. Every building, the stores and the school. My school. The school is not quite deserted as solitary child neglected by his friends is left there still. I know it. The place is the same. The ceiling cracked, the room dirty. And myself. Yes, myself. There's someone at the door. Dear, dear brother, I've come to bring you home, dear brother, forever and ever. Her father is so much kinder than he used to be at home.

It's like heaven. He spoke to me so gently one night that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might like to come home. And he said, yes, you should, and sent me a coach to bring you home. Always a delicate creature whom a breath might have with it. But she had such a large heart. So she had. You're right, I will not deny it. Spirit. God forbid she died a woman and her children, I think. One child. Your nephew? Yes. Come Scrooge. Do you know this place? Oh, look, I know it. I was apprenticed here, this warehouse, and you know the man behind that desk. Quite why it's OK fezziwig bless my heart. It's crazy. Big, fat, jolly fellow alive again goes into the desert. And those two Ladson calls, do you know then what. Why? It's myself as a young man, a living moving picture

and Dick Wilkins, my old fellow prentis place to be. Yes, there he is. He was very much attached to me. He was poor dick, dear to your eyes. No more work tonight. Christmas Eve. Dick Ebeneezer. Let's have the same Jackie Robinson lives and let's have a room where there was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away or couldn't have cleared away with Old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off as if it were dismissed from public life. Forever more. The floor was swept and watered. The lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire and the warehouse was as snug and warm and bright. A ballroom as you would desire to see if on a winter's night, in came a fiddler with a music book untuned like fifty stomachaches. In came Mrs Fezziwig one bust, substantial smile. In came the three miss busy weeks, beaming and lovable.

In came all the young men and women employed in the business, the house meet with their cousin, the baker, in came the cook and the milkman. In the old came one after another. Some pushing, some pulling. There were dances and games and more dances. There was cake and putting in a great piece of cold boiled mince pies and plenty of beer. Oh, look at him. There have always been wonderful dancers. No one is better than he, isn't he? Law is looking old Fezziwig just as he was. Oh, I remember him so. And Mrs Fezziwig too. Oh what a lovely party. When the clock struck 11, the ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations and shook the hand of every guest and wished all a merry Christmas. Oh, dear, dear, dear. It's a small matter to make these folks so full of gratitude, I wish.

What is the matter? Nothing in particular. Something, I think. No, no. I should just like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk, Bob Cratchit. That's all. My time grows short. Do you know these two Ebenezer Scrooge? Yes, it is myself again, but older now in my prime. And the girl with you, she was my betrothed. Spirit. Please listen, it matters little to you, very little. Another idol has displaced me. What Idol has displaced you? A golden one. You fear the world too much. I have seen your hopes and dreams dwindle to nothing as wealth becomes the most important thing of all to you.

What then? I am not changed towards you, am I? Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so you are changed. When it was made you were another man. I release you Ebeneezer, with a heart full of love for the man you once were. In a very brief time you will dismiss the recollections of it and unprofitable dream from which it happened. Well, that you work may you be happy in life. You have chosen a goodbye spirit. Show me no more. Contact me home. Why do you torture me? One shadow war another. No more. No more. I don't wish to see it. Show me no more than a shadow more. It is here again, but much older, matronly spirit, that man with her, her husband.

Listen. Well, I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon. Who was it? Yes. Oh, how can I? Oh, they don't know he's a Scrooge. Mr. Scrooge, it was oh, I passed his office window and it was not shut up and had a candle inside. I could scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point of death, I hear. No, no, no. There he sat alone. No, quite alone in the world. No, no spirit to remove me from this place. I have told you there were shadows of the things that have been. Do not blame me that they are what they are. Movie. I cannot bear it. Leave me. Take me back. Haunt me no longer. I'm back in my chamber. And so tired, so tired.