Villain’s role suits Carlsson in ‘A Christmas Carol’

By Chris Brown on November 22, 2018.

cbrown@medicinehatnews.com @MHNBrown

Haters gonna hate, and Tony Carlsson wouldn’t have it any other way.

He’s played villainous characters before — Abanaza in 2016’s “Aladdin” pantomime and the Sheriff of Nottingham in “Robin Hood” last year.

“Part of the fun of (playing a villain) is having the crowd slather boos all over you and throw insults,” he said with just a little glee. “If you’re not comfortable with that then it’s not for you but it’s what I love the best.”

Carlsson takes on the role of Scrooge in Medicine Hat Musical Theatre’s upcoming “A Christmas Carol” pantomime. There are nine showings at the MHMT Playhouse from Nov. 30-Dec. 15, including three 18+ shows.

If you don’t know what a pantomime is, it’s a well-known story turned on its head through local references, reversed gender roles and naughty humour. Carlsson sums it up neatly: “There are some unexpected directions we take with very familiar material.”

Countless iterations of the Charles Dickens classic have graced stage and screen over the years, leading to no shortage of interpretations of the Christmas miser. This being a panto, Carlsson says his Scrooge is edgier than others, a necessity to keep with the show’s style and tone.

Many of the hallmarks of Dickens’ Scrooge and the larger story remain though, so Carlsson and the rest of the cast have to rein themselves in from time to time.
“You have to allow that story to still survive within the context of the panto. It can’t just be chaos and fun,” he says.

Chaos and fun are apt descriptions of some of the 18+ finale shows over the years. Highly-popular and a quick sellout, MHMT has an adult performance on each Saturday of this show’s run. Those shows are more scripted than in the past. An excess of improvisation and performers going off on their own looking for laughs left some with the theatre group feeling a change was in order.

“We’ve vetted the material, we’ve rehearsed it, and played it off each other,” Carlsson says. “So we’re not getting a repetition of lewd jokes, we’re not getting just a series of curse words or low-brow humour that becomes tiresome by the end of the play.”

Carlsson says it’s probably their best delivery of an 18+ show.

A panto veteran, Carlsson enjoys them for a couple of reasons. For one, he enjoys the improvisation the genre encourages. And two?

“I can’t sing,” he laughs. “Medicine Hat Musical Theatre pretty much requires some kind of singing ability on some level and I’m not very good at that but I enjoy doing stage stuff.”

With his son an avid performer, the annual pantos presented a chance for Tony and Simon to share the stage. Art is imitating life in “A Christmas Carol” with Simon playing the young version of Scrooge.

Tickets, showtimes and more information are available at mhmtheatre.com

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