City College Norwich

All I had when I arrived at Conical Productions new show was the name.

Briefly, the story was this: Carol Carter played by the excellent Carol Bailey, was a salacious investigative journalist who spent her time making TV programmes about murders in which she returned to the scene of old crimes with a medium.

She was a bit of a female Scrooge who had hardened herself to the ghosts of her past: the child she aborted, the brother who hung himself, It was strong stuff.

The set was a sparse collection of motley rubbish: old trolleys, obscene graffiti, no glass in the icy windows. It was supposed to be The Guild of Literature and Art: a home which Dickens conceived as a place where artists and authors could live rent free and work.

In real life, this was demolished in the 1960s.

This bleak setting had a clear message about the way director Hugh Sorril saw life as a contemporary artist.

A gripping play which raised more questions than were answered. Unlike Dicken's original, the morals were not clear cut.