A fruity Brian Blessed and eccentric Penelope Keith take the humbug out of this Christmas Carol 3/5 A somewhat tired and hit-and-miss adaptation of the festive favourite is propped up by gleeful turns from our two national treasures Larger-than-life: Brian Blessed There are enough Christmas Carols afoot to keep a critic busy year round. I’m not jaded yet. If I could, for instance, get to Liverpool Playhouse (Tier 2) to see Gemma Bodinetz’s swansong show as artistic director, I would. There’s even a version recorded at Dickens’ old Holborn home on Doughty Street that I’ll watch this week, and I hope to revisit my local production in Chipping Norton, starring David Bradley, for it was so damned good. Standing out from the crowd, though, is a must.