Hunting A Christmas Carol
Christmas, for many, is a time for traditions. And growing up it wasn’t Christmas without A Christmas Carol.
My family had a long history with the Dickens classic. It was a favourite of my Grandfather, and in his youth he purchased a copy of a 1941 radio production produced by Ernest Chappell and staring Eustace Wyatt as Scrooge. He had a couple others as well, but this production was his favourite, and so he and my father spent many a Christmas listening to the 78rpm records.
Many years later I came along, and my father and grandfather shared this tradition with me, going so far as to transfer the production to cassette so that I could listen to it before bed every night in the days leading up to Santa’s arrival.
Over the years, technology has marched on, and that tape has since been worn out from years and years of replay. When my grandfather passed away we managed to save the original records, but without a turntable capable of 78rpm playback they merely sit at my parents’ house collecting dust.
But the internet is a wondrous place so I set out to find out more about this recording, in hopes of tracking down a higher quality version for my listening pleasure.
Turns out there’s very little information about it out there. While there are plenty of websites hosting a similar radio production (starring the legendary Orson Welles and stage legend Lionel Barrymore) information about this recording was sparse.
I managed to find a blog post discussing the recording, a Discogs listing, and eventually did find a digitized copy on YouTube, albeit one that was riddled with compression artifacts and too much noise reduction.
But then I struck gold, or so it seemed. A website called Victor Records contained a blog post from December of 2015 announcing that they had received a copy of the original discs, and had digitally remastered the entire thing and would be sharing it through their podcast and on iTunes. My heart skipped a beat.
But as I kept digging, and searching around the website my heart began to sink. From what I could tell nothing beyond this blog post ever materialized. There was no digitally remastered copy of the production. There was no podcast. The His Master’s Voice label didn’t even seem to exist. I had once again reached another dead-end. I tried emailing the company several times to no avail.
But I haven’t yet given up hope. The internet is a wonderful place, and my thought was that perhaps if I made a blog post, somehow, someway, someone might find it and be able to point me in the right direction. Or perhaps someone else also looking for information will come across this post and be able to do more digging on their own. You never know.
All I know is this is one Christmas tradition I’d really love to be able to revisit someday…
The following information was taken from the YouTube video linked to earlier in this post.
The Cast
Narrator - Ernest Chappell
Old Scrooge - Eustace Wyatt
Bob Cratchitt - John McGovern
Marley's Ghost - John Gibson
Ghost of Christmas Past - Richard Gordon
Ghost of Christmas Present - Shirling Oliver
Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come - The Music
Nephew Fred - Bud Collier
The Solicitor - Craig McDonnell
Mrs. Cratchitt - Helen Brown
Tiny Tim - Larry Robinson
Martha Cratchitt - Evelyn Devine
Master Peter Cratchitt - Master Dickie VanPatten
Belinda Cratchitt - Lesley Woods
Belle - Lesley Woods
Belle's Husband - John Gibson
Two Men on the Street - Alfred Shirley, Burford Hampden
Boy on the Street - James Donnolly
Quartet
Mary Merker - Soprano
Paula Heminghous - Contralto
Henry Shope - Tenor
Walter Preston - Baritone
Sound Effects - Charles Range
Original Music - Lew White
Adapted, Produced, and Narrated by Ernest Chappell
December 2023 Update: While I’ve unfortunately still not found a perfect copy of the recording, someone recently uploaded a new transfer to Archive.org which you can download.
I also wanted to share a copy that was shared with me a couple Christmases ago. Unfortunately I cannot remember who sent it to me, but I thank them very much.
Happy Christmas!