A Christmas Carol: Robert Lindsay is a suave Scrooge

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Robert Lindsay will perform the role of Scrooge in A Christmas Carol at the Lyceum Theatre in London

And as we chat in a London hotel I’m thinking the same – this suave-looking bloke wouldn’t be my first choice to play Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. 

But Lindsay, 67, can’t wait to return to the role in the concert performance of Alan Menken’s musical version of the Dickens classic, which he first performed with the London Musical Theatre Orchestra last year. 

“I did the production last year rather reluctantly, as I’m generally not very good at these ‘platform productions’ where you walk around with a script, which I’m hoping to get rid of this year,” he explains. 

“But when I heard that orchestra behind me, it was the most exciting moment of my life. The moment you hear those 32 musicians behind you, something just happens and you go into another realm. 

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Robert Lindsay presented a Laurence Olivier Award to actor Gavin Creel

Harvey Weinstein represented everything I came to hate about movies. If he owned a movie, he owned everyone in it

Robert Lindsay


“I got very emotional at the end when the whole orchestra and chorus struck up with the last song. The redemption of Scrooge is very moving, when he realises he’s taken the wrong path in life and then embraces what’s left of his family. 

“My family came to see the show last year and, as they left, they said, ‘Doesn’t it feel like Christmas?’ 

“And the LMTO orchestra founder and principal conductor, Freddie Tapner, came to my house yesterday and we ran through a few songs on the piano in the front room – my sons came home from school and it was instantly Christmas.” 

Family is clearly important to Lindsay, who is obviously a million times nicer as a father than his character Ben in hit sitcom My Family.

His conversation is peppered with references to actress daughter Sydney Stevenson, whose mother is Diana Weston and who will be appearing in panto in Welwyn Garden City this Christmas, and his teenage sons with wife Rosemarie Ford, Samuel and James.

Rosemarie was a dancer and TV presenter, best known for The Generation Game, but is content to stay out of the spotlight. 

“She is Mrs Musical,” says her proud husband. 

“She could have been a massive musical star but she gave it up to have children. That was her choice. She’s been asked to do countless things but it’s a no; although she does teach dance locally and does get asked to help out with actors needing some help with dancing at Pinewood Studios, which is near where we live.” 

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Lindsay and Rosemarie Ford attended the Prince’s Trust Awards at the London Palladium

He explains his children have had a very different upbringing to his own in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, where he was discouraged from being an actor by a careers teacher who sneered that he might like a career in hairdressing. 

“When you go to a comprehensive school in the East Midlands, it is all very blokey,” he remembers, but his parents were tremendously encouraging of his dreams. 

“On the day I left home at 17 to go to drama school, in London, my father Norman, who was a trade unionist and a carpenter, said, ‘I’ve got something for you, have a look. I think you’ll like it, you’ll find it useful’. He’d wrapped it up and it was a make-up box. I still have it today. It was such a moving thing for him to do. 

“Years later, I was in Me And My Girl at the Adelphi and I got my first standing ovation. Emma Thompson (his leading lady) pushed me to the front of the stage. Everyone was on their feet apart from my dad, who was about 10 rows back and right in my eye-line, clapping but completely nonplussed. 

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Robert Lindsay, Diana Gladys Tonna and Cameron Mackintosh attended a party for ‘Half A Sixpence’

“At the party I asked him what he thought and he said it was great. I asked him why he didn’t stand up and he said, ‘I’d paid for the bloody seat’.” 

Lindsay is hugely grateful for what his parents did for him and realises he is in a lucky position to give his children more, materially, but also be demonstrative. 

“All three of my children are incredibly tactile; we kiss and hug and say we love one another, which I think is incredibly important. 

“I was recently in Prism at the Hampstead Theatre (about legendary cinematographer Jack Cardiff) and one of the other actors and I were talking about how our 17-year-olds had given us a hard time – A-levels are such a stressful time for everyone – when my phone went off. It was a text from my son saying ‘I’m so sorry, Dad, I love you’.” 

In October, Lindsay tweeted about being close to the Harvey Weinstein scandal. 

Weinstein produced the film Strike It Rich, in which Lindsay co-starred with Molly Ringwald, and after he tried to protect her from Weinstein, who was trying to over-sexualise her role, Lindsay says his own career was damaged and he was removed from Shakespeare In Love when he had already been cast. 

“Because I confronted him, he basically halted my film career,” Lindsay wrote on Twitter, adding: “Harvey Weinstein represented everything I came to hate about movies. If he owned a movie, he owned everyone in it.” 

So why did he speak out? “It was about coming to the defence of all those women that didn’t say anything and when they did, all the trolls came out saying, ‘Why didn’t they say that 40 years ago?’ 

“I thought, ‘Have you any concept of what it’s like to be an actor; how vulnerable and insecure you are in the profession and you’re desperate to do this job, which is maybe the only job you’re going to do that year?’ 

“I stood up to him and I paid a price. But now these women have their power back; and more power to their elbow.” 

Lindsay’s career is now a very long way from his early days of fame, where he admits that one of the reasons he took a lead role in the RAF sitcom Get Some In! was to pay a £190 electricity bill. 

Prism is currently being developed as a film by Martin Scorsese’s company; Lindsay will be seen in the new series of Roman-set sitcom Plebs and he’s particularly proud of his appearance in Galavant, the musical comic fantasy TV series. 

He’s hoping to move into directing next year. 

“I love working with students; I’ve found it really inspirational and I think the kids feed off working with an old guy like me who’s been in the business for so many years.” 

But in the meantime, he’s looking forward to bringing Britain’s favourite Christmas misery-guts to the London stage: “There’s such a good buzz about A Christmas Carol; it’s the definitive Christmas story. And as soon as you hear that orchestra, it really makes Christmas.”

Robert Lindsay stars in the concert version of A Christmas Carol with the London Musical Theatre Orchestra at the Lyceum Theatre on December 11 and 18. Tickets and information: 0844 871 7627/ lmto.org