Christmas Carole (2022 TV Movie) User Reviews

Enjoyable romp through Dickens classic tale

[peterrichboy · 7/10 · 27 December 2022]

Well no Christmas would be complete, without at least one version of Charles Dickens classic Christmas yarn a Christmas Carol, in this case the carol being played by Suranne Jones, a very successful business woman Who takes on the part of Ebeneezer Scrooge, she hates Christmas and everything it stands for as is told in the classic tale.

The ghosts of past present and future are played by stars of light entertainment. The past is represented brilliantly by Morecambe and Wise. Played by Jonty Stevens and Ian Aspinall, and if you only watch the show for one reason watch it for their performance because if your as old as me and remember Morecambe and Wise then you will realise how good these performances are. It goes a little bit downhill after that and we all know the story and how it ends, but the performances particularly by Jones and the ever reliable Mark Benton make this a good family watch at Christmas. 7/10.

Was good but writers had clearly watched Scrooged

[stevenjrwhiting · 5/10 · 26 December 2022]

Was a OK watch if nothing else. Effects ropey but then it is a TV movie.

The problem I had was the writers have lifted bits from Scrooged. We have the ghost that is a cab driver, just as in Scrooged. We have her listen to events at christmas present then, in front of the camera at the end mentions a reference to what she saw. You hear the uncle say "How did she know" just like in Scrooged. And we have the mother appear riding an exercise bike, in Scrooged it was his brother when in his office having a chat.

Eric Morecambe impersonator was really good.

We all know the story and I like a lot of the changes, such as the Sikh family celebrity Christmas and the uncle moaning about this.

But I think the main issue is the fact the writers have clearly lifted a few of their ideas from Scrooged. Obviously changed them around so they can be classed as "transformative". Someone signed off for this and obviously either didn't notice or didn't care. If all the ideas had been original but still based around a Christmas Carol then fine. But when a lot of the material appears to have just been copied from Scrooged then it gets marked down heavily.

vanity vehicle not very good.

[ib011f9545i · 6/10 · 26 December 2022]

This was a one off Christmas comedy/drama made and shown on SKY tv.

It is based on Dicken's Christmas Carol.

Women boss from modest background realizes life is not always about money.

I have watched the career of the lead Suranne Jones since she was in Coronation Street.

She is now a star and in lots of things.

I was worried when I saw she was a co producer of this because that is often a bad sign.

She was in Dr Foster where I think she was also a producer and the second series of that was poor.

But to this production.

The plot was obvious,there were no great performances and I slightly regret watching this.

A Christmas Karen.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 24 December 2022]

Carole is a tough, merciless businesswoman, taking everyone for granted, driven only by one thing, money, on Christmas Eve she gets a chilling awakening.

Scrooge retold for 2022, now I'm not always sold on the modern retellings of classic stories, sometimes things can get a little lost, but this actually worked. Quite funny in parts, with a few nice surprises in store.

I loved The Morecambe and Wise sequences, very funny, wonderfully realistic, Jonty Stephens and Ian Ashpitel were excellent.

Suranne Jones is a class act, I'm a real fan of hers, no way would she have taken this on if it had been a Christmas turkey, I thought she did a great job here.

Ok, so the special effects were a bit dodgy it's fair to say, but nobody is here for those, it's all about the story.

Surprised me how good it actually was, 8/10.

Had promise, but didn't deliver

[bobby-99344 · 3/10 · 25 December 2022]

Another modern updating of a Christmas Carol.

For about the first 20 mins it held promise, but then seemed to wither in it's impact, storyline & authenticity as it went on. Perhaps it was in part because of it's short running time (basically a TV movie, but only 66 mins in length).

I wouldn't say it was awful, it passed the time. The acting was generally good. It gave me the odd smile (mostly nearer the beginning) and with some clever ideas, such as who the ghosts that visited were, I wouldn't say this is a totally awful film. Would I rewatch it a second time? Definitely not - I was glad when it was over, and it won't be revisited next Xmas.

A bit boring overall if nothing else!

Excellent modern version Bah Humbug

[john-allen76-1 · 10/10 · 27 December 2022]

The people who have given this poor marks are the real Scrooges. It is very enjoyable and the Morecambe and Wise section is simply epic.

I imagine the bad markers didn't get what they wanted for Christmas and are still sulking.

So it's a rip off of Dickens and Scrooged - so what?????

I would like to stick a sprig of holly into the hearts of the poor markers and make them cheer up a bit.

There should be more stuff like this on tv - and it's British for Dickens' sake.

Will happily watch this every Christmas without fail and will be happy in the knowledge that the miseries who didn't like this are watching utter rubbish (serves them right)

Bad choice of actors

[iainmcleod_800 · 1/10 · 24 December 2022]

Jo brand makes jokes about throwing battery acid over people, Nish is unfunny, cant act & has a chip on his shoulder.

Throw in a lecture on sustainability and you have a terrible show.

I did laugh once at a joke by Eric Morcombe, confirming new comedy is dead.

Nothing made these days is any good. Too much lecturing and people thinking they are better than others.

They missed the whole irony of that with this story And it was so obvious from point 1 what was going to happen. If they removed jo brand and nish then id have bumped up the score.

How dare we all want plastic reindeer antlers, right?

Eric and Ernie

[GoldenGooner04 · 8/10 · 3 January 2023]

When I 1st saw the trailers for this, thought it was a drama based on Eric and Ernie. Then saw the title and was well confused, started to watch it then Eric & Ernie appeared, this was a Xmas Pressie, brought back memories as my whole family used to watch Eric and Ernie, If i am feeling down, depressed a dose of these 2 is great medicine.

Don't know the 2 actors who played them, but they were very good, The one who played Eric was pretty superb, all the old jokes were there. All the best bits, When they had done their bit, the show just died.

Sky maybe do a show about Eric and Ernie, as they stole the show, and made my Xmas, brilliant casting !!

It brought the sunshine into my life :-) As for the lead, we know she is a class actor but this was not her part. Last comedy she done was with Steve in Corrie !!

Topical wit buried in a flat mediocrity

[stusby · 3/10 · 26 December 2022]

Suranne Jones strains to carry the dead weight of this poorly developed production.

Flaccid direction forces this compilation of cutting room takes into a limp adaptation where proven talent is given no opportunity to draw in the audience.

Nish Kumar successfully reinterprets a clichéd character to show the frustration it must feel, especially when it tries to be wordlessly enigmatic.

Jo Brand seems poorly rehearsed and largely jokeless.

The Morecambe and Wise duo has real spark and charm even where the jokes failed.

This show is a good example of the risk of writing jokes for comics who do exactly that for a living. They should be trusted to amend the script.

The clunky explanation at the end revealing motives undermined a nice twist.

It appears the script was put in the hands of the wrong producers.

Suranne Jones is Fantastic

[F1991 · 9/10 · 24 December 2022]

I thought I'd give this a try after seeing the trailer on nearly every Sky ad break throughout December.

It's a well shot, well acted, well-paced little TV mini movie. Suranne Jones is excellent, Rosie Cavaliero is hilarious & the whole show has a modern, funny yet warm feel throughout. Plus it's not too long either.

This seems to be another mixed-genre piece from Sky, it's colourful and funny on the surface, but it doesn't seem to do it justice treating it as a kids' movie as there are a lot of gown-up themes underneath.

Overall, Christmas Carole is a decent watch this Christmas, and a pleasant surprise!

Brilliant family Christmas film

[joclarke76 · 10/10 · 30 December 2022]

Wonderful Christmas film - highly recommended. Suranne Jones continues to impress with her varied project choices in 2022, and does it again with a full bodied and committed performance as Carole, a modern day Scrooge character straight out of Dickens- but with a twist. Jo Brand is an absolute hoot. With a wonderful mix of sentiment, humour, tragedy and hope for the future, this film has something for everyone. The Morcombe and Wise segments are particularly poignant, witty and well done. This film will certainly be on my annual Christmas watch list in the coming years. This is delightful fun for all the family.

Surprising.

[adamjohns-42575 · 8/10 · 4 January 2023]

Christmas Carole (2022) -

As a huge fan of 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens, whether in book form or on film, I have seen my fair share of these "Alternative" versions too, usually tied up in some Hallmark romance or something similar, but not all of them good and actually quite a lot of them have been pretty awful.

As such I went in to the viewing of this one with some trepidation, especially as a lot of the British attempts at seasonal films, that I've seen lately, have been a bit poor to say the least and some of the cast didn't exactly inspire me.

I have to say though, that this adapted and modernised take on my favourite story was actually really good, definitely one of the better ones.

I could criticise the production for it's choice to utilise Mark Benton as Carole's Father, but that would only be because I don't generally like him in anything. In fairness, he played the part as required, whereas Jo Brand was way out of her depth as "The Ghost Of Christmas Present".

Aside from them however, even Nish Kumar in the role of "The Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come" wasn't awful and Alex Carter, whom I have despised ever since he first appeared as Lee in 'Hollyoaks' (1995), seemed really apt playing Carole's Brother Ade. It was the best I've ever seen from him and I never thought that I would ever feel sorry for one of his characters as I did in this film.

Surranne Jones in the title role of "Christmas" Carole, did what was required of her too. The direction of the film meant that she needed to be a tad over the top, but it didn't offend me as others have before (Tom Arnold, Kelsey Grammar and Jim Carrey to name but a few).

Although I wasn't sure how it might translate over the pond, I loved the nods to British Christmases past with the use of 'The Snowman' (1982) and 'Morecambe & Wise'.

I actually thought that the guy playing Eric Morecambe (Jonty Stephens) really nailed it and even Ernie Wise (Ian Ashpitel) sounded just like he should.

I also liked the way that they updated things and adjusted some elements to fit a more technological time, but I really hoped that the poor woman playing Jackie Marley (Rosie Cavaliero) had prosthetics applied and didn't actually go through the ordeal of plastic surgery to look like she did.

Okay, so it was a bit cheap in places, but it contained a modern message about consumerism, as well as a word about family estrangement and the consideration of others feelings and finding out what was real, before making assumptions. A lot of that was covered in the source novel and in the films more true to that material of course, but the production were clever here to adapt to a world that is in trouble and change the messages accordingly.

790.21/1000.