Bah Humbug!

I am betting you recognized the phrase from the title, at least heard it before. "Bah! said Scrooge Humbug." Yes this quote is from Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol. One of the most famous Christmas stories of all times.This story has many, many different versions that have been remade into movies, rewritten, radio broadcast, etc, but since there are many different versions of A Christmas Carol: movies, books, radio broadcast, etc. people do not realize that these adaptations all have inimitable differences about them. The Mercury Theatre sponsored The Campbell Playhouse, which aired many classic novel versions, as radio broadcast, in one, which Orson Welles directed and starred in is the radio broadcast of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.  Both Dickens and Welles presented The Christmas Carol during trying times, Dickens wrote the novel during the hungry forties of London, while Orson Welles presented the broadcast during The Great Depression. There are many reasons that writers or film directors rewrite and change A Christmas Carol, but they never completely change the main concept. Welles had to modify the story, so that it fit into a radio broadcast and to fit more definite themes that suited his wishes.  His changes included: bringing more depth to certain themes, such as: religious, the joy of Christmas themes and also shortening certain scenes for the specified time span of the broadcast.

I just finished writing an essay about A Christmas Carol, comparing Orson Welles radio broadcast to Charles Dickens novel. My class has been working on this project for the past 2 months, having to do one thing or another and just maybe this essay will get published to along with the redo of Orson Welles radio broadcast play that WCU is going to present in December. Wish me luck! 

Charles Dickens
http://robertarood.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/charles-dickens.jpg

Orson Welles
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/images/orsonwelleswaroftheworlds.jpg

Below is the link if you want to listen to the broadcast: 

http://www.mercurytheatre.info/ 

Scroll down to Campbell's play house and click on MP3.