Owen Teale admits struggling to step into Scrooge’s shoes in A Christmas Carol-Hugh Montgomery-Entertainment – Metro

Owen Teale will play the iconic character (Picture: Manuel Harlan)

As a self-declared ‘very Christmas person’, Owen Teale admits stepping into the shoes of A Christmas Carol’s Ebenezer Scrooge has been a struggle, in the story’s initial stages, at least.

‘I’m a natural for the end sequence where Scrooge gets what Christmas is about but I have to close all that up [initially] – close the shell like an oyster,’ says the Welsh star of Game Of Thrones and Line Of Duty, who is playing the infamous miser in the latest run of Jack Thorne’s hit stage version at London’s Old Vic.

‘That’s in the opening narration – Scrooge has made himself as ‘solitary as an oyster”,’ he adds. ‘He relies on no one and he’s got a very hard shell.’

Owen was compelled to take the part because of the strength of Jack’s adaptation: seeing previous years productions, with Paterson Joseph and Stephen Mangan as Scrooge, ‘it literally staggered me,’ he says.

‘I couldn’t get over the power of a story I thought I knew – it was like I’d never seen it before.’

For him, it’s a version that really brings out A Christmas Carol’s enduring relevance, and political undertones. ‘Scrooge doesn’t just say “Bah humbug,” he says, “I’m simply a man who lives his life and I expect others to live theirs, and then we’d all be alright,”’ says Owen.

The play is a spin on the Charles Dickens classic (Picture: Manuel Harlan)

‘Now [that reminds me of] when I was young, when Margaret Thatcher said “don’t worry about society, society will take care of itself”’.

At the same time, of course, it’s a tale that ends in joyful fashion, with Scrooge a redeemed man – the antithesis of many dramas, where characters become more morally compromised as the narrative progresses. Does Owen leave the theatre on a high each night?

‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m exhausted,’ he laughs. ‘But I do have a spring in my step. I feel like I’ve had a refresher course [in life] – [the lesson being that] you have to keep opening yourself up and trying to help and trusting that people will help you in the same way.’

Growing up in South Wales, Owen’s acting career began in unconventional fashion – in his late teens. ‘Running away,’ from doing his A-levels, he got a job dressing up as Barry the Bear entertaining kids at a fairground on Barry Island.

The actor said he hopes the play will bring out the political undertones of the tale (Picture: Manuel Harlan)

‘While I was there, there were two other people who were also dressing up as animals who were dance students,’ he explains. ‘And it was them who said, “I think you should go to acting school.”

‘I knew so little, I said, “How do you go about that?’” After going to Guildford School Of Acting, Owen then built up his reputation on stage and screen through the 1980s and 1990s, before enjoying a massive career moment in 1997, when he won a Tony award for his performance opposite Janet McTeer in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House on Broadway.

Owen, and Sebastien Torkia as Marley (right), in the Jack Thorne production (Picture: Manuel Harlan)

These days, he’s best known for Game Of Thrones and Line Of Duty, though it’s the former, in which he played the villainous Ser Alliser Thorne, for which he’s most recognised in the street. ‘That’s a daily occurrence,’ he says, adding that sometimes people will ask him to say something horrible or call them a ‘bastard’, in reference to how his character sneeringly put down hero Jon Snow.

‘I usually oblige. They make a little film and that tickles them for five minutes. It’s amazing that years later that is still happening.’ For all such jokes now, though, it’s a show that Owen says ‘wasn’t a holiday’ to film, given the emotionally damaged nature of his soldier character, who he understood as suffering from PTSD. ‘I’m not that clever an actor. I can’t just switch on and off,’ he says. ‘I always felt slightly depressed [after filming].’

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As for Line Of Duty, in which he played another bad guy, bent copper Philip Osborne, he says he would ‘not be surprised’ if the hit crime drama made a return, despite talk of the last series potentially being the final one. What’s more, creator Jed Mercurio has suggested that there is ‘potential’ for more focus on Osborne, who is still at large – something that Owen would be well up for.

‘I would be keen because I’d think that genius – and I don’t use that word lightly – like Jed Mercurio, wouldn’t be doing it unless he had something to say. He’d have a narrative for that character that would resonate with the way we live today, and how he sees power and the abuse of power.’

You won’t have to wait long to see Owen in another explosive TV series: launching in January on Amazon Prime Video, The Rig is a supernatural thriller that reunites him with his Line Of Duty co-star Martin Compston as they play North Sea oil rig workers contending with mysterious terrors.

As for stage roles, the next iconic part he has in his sights is an even more troubled soul: King Lear. ‘As much as I don’t want to think that I’m at that stage, I am. People are already starting to ask me but I’ve turned them down so far,’ he laughs. Let’s hope he relents soon enough.

A Christmas Carol is at London’s Old Vic until Jan 7 2023.

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