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 BBC’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ Is Giving Us Serious ‘Peaky Blinders’ Feels

BBC’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ Is Giving Us Serious ‘Peaky Blinders’ Feels

*Prays for a cameo from Tommy Shelby*

Joanna Freedman

Joanna Freedman

BBC's A Christmas Carol is airing next week, and it looks so dark.

Written by Stephen Knight, who also worked on Peaky Blinders, it's no wonder the teaser for the three part Charles Dickens re-imagination is so mystical and eery.

Executive produced by actor Tom Hardy - who is all too familiar with dark BBC dramas having played Peaky's Alfie Solomons - A Christmas Carol is described as "haunting, hallucinatory, spine-tingling immersion into Scrooge's dark night of the soul." Sounds familiar.

Like Peaky, it also stars some heart-throbs at its helm, with Hollywood actor Guy Pearce taking on Ebenezer Scrooge while Taylor Swift's boyfriend Joe Alwyn will play Bob Cratchit.

'A Christmas Carol' looks so dark and gloomy (
BBC)

Vinette Robinson also takes up the role of Bob's wife, desperately trying to care for her sick son, Tiny Tim. Andy Serkis will play the Ghost of Christmas Past, and Jason Flemyng has been cast as Ghost of Christmas Future.

Meanwhile Stephen Graham stars as Jacob Marley, who - much like Tommy Shelby - runs a factory. But it all goes terribly wrong when his workers die in a gas blast.

There's even a Peaky star in the cast too, as Charlotte Riley, who played Alfie's wife May Carleton on the show, will take up the brand new role of Scrooge's sister Lottie.

And, hey, even their get-ups are similar to those worn by Alfie Solomons, Tommy and the rest of the cast.

The costumes are even similar to those in 'Peaky Blinders' (
BBC)

As for the trailer, like everyone's favourite gangster show, warm and fuzzy it is not, with the 1.23 second reel showing scenes of horror - fire, torture, ill children, creepy old men with sewn up mouths, and drowning toddlers not excluded.

"Tonight you will not sleep," says once of the haunting ghosts. "Come and look upon the evil that you did."

The haunting voice then rings: "Justice will grab you by the throat and drag you to the truth".

Creeeepy.

Tom Hardy is executive producer (
BBC)

While the Dickens classic certainly looks like it's got a lot darker, Knight said he was keen not to change it up too much in plot.

"I am a huge fan of Dickens so I approached it with a lot of reverence," he said.

"I didn't want come along and take a classic and try and vandalise it, or discredit it or change it too much".

He added: "There were many things that Dickens couldn't talk about because of the sensibilities of the time when he was writing.

Scrooge's sister Lottie ('Peaky's Charlotte Riley) is also introduced (
BBC)

"I wanted to see some of the clues and some of the implications in the book and in the story, and see if I could develop and explore them, and hopefully do justice to what Dickens wrote."

We'll definitely be tuning in to this one.

A Christmas Carol begins on December 22 on BBC One at 9pm and runs for three nights on the channel.

Featured Image Credit: BBC

Topics: Christmas, BBC, TV News, TV Entertainment, Peaky Blinders