‘Because of How He Is’: A Comparative Analysis of the Representation of Tiny Tim in Charles Webb's ‘Old Scrooge’ (1844) and Mark Gatiss's ‘A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story’ (2021–22),Exploring the Possibilities of Adaptations for the Casting and Employment of Disabled Performers

Abstract

Of Dickensian adaptations, Bratton observes, ‘no one feels excluded from having a go’ (2017, p. xiv). A humorous reference to films like The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), this comment is nevertheless striking, since it took until 2019 for disabled child performer Lenny Rush to portray Tiny Tim in a major UK screen production, having debuted in the role onstage at The Old Vic in 2017. Now productions regularly cast disabled children as Tim, this article situates the casting of disabled adult performer Zak Ford-Williams in Mark Gatiss’ ensemble-focussed adaptation, A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story (2021–22), alongside the approach to disability in Charles Webb's Old Scrooge (1844), to interrogate Tim's enduring representational symbolism since 1843. Combining theatre, performance, literary and disability studies with industrial and employment relations, its analysis examines how changing approaches to dramatisation, and to disability representation and casting, impact disabled performers’ ‘working realities’ (Dean, 2008, p. 8).