Around The Town Chicago - Recommended
"...What makes this production so very special is Nick Sandys himself. He is an unusual talent! Sandys has the ability to hold an audience from start to finish, changing characters at will. His voice, face and body movement are powerful and amazing. I believe he is using his home to put on this production and with his knowledge of theater, he has all the correct lighting, sound, and even props to make it work. The greater part of this show is that he has done the adaptation and he knows the work of the author ( he grew up on Dickens)."
WTTW - Highly Recommended
"...Sandys (whose earlier virtual endeavor this year was a sublime recitation of Shakespeare's Sonnets), does an impeccable job of bringing to life every character (including Dickens himself), as well as the various locations so brilliantly conjured by the author. And he makes the streets, and chimes, and times of day and night palpable through nothing more than his facial expressions and a multitude of voices. In the process, he also demonstrates that this story, now nearly two centuries old, is in many ways of the moment."
Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended
"...This magnificent, polished production is, understandably, more talk than action. But, it allows the viewer to use his own imagination as he joins Nick Sandys in creating images and painting pictures with Dickens' words. The play is nicely stage managed by Mara Sagal and Ian Frank works a special magic as Video Editor. While the production takes place entirely in a single location, the lovely English sitting room is perfectly appropriate. Sound effects, evocative background music and unique lighting all help indicate mood and locale. All-in-all, this excellent one-man performance is another perfect production by one of Chicago's finest theatres."
Chicago On Stage - Highly Recommended
"...Inhabiting all of these characters and more is Sandys. The term "tour de force" is overused in criticism, but it feels as if it were invented to describe Sandys in this play. Shot with a single camera, with its star remaining close to a music stand from which he reads his script, this production nonetheless provides plenty of space for him to fully realize every one of the many characters we meet along Trotty's journey. He takes every opportunity to explore them through voice, stance, facial expression, and movement, at times bringing his face almost fully up to the camera's lens to highlight the pompousness of some characters or the dark, musical undertones of the bells' supernatural inhabitants, all sharply in contrast to the sweet, vulnerable, and impressionable Trotty. It is a remarkable performance in every way."
TotalTheater - Highly Recommended
"...Against the background of an authentic Victorian-era parlor, with minimal technical assistance from stage manager Mara Segal and video editor Ian Frank, Sandys as performer inhabits the persona of Dickens at his most pedagogical without a wink or nudge to distract us from the enduring, if heavy-handed, lesson on the despair engendered by a capricious universe, while Sandys the adaptor's choice of source material represents an alternative to what the British-born artist sees as a plethora of Christmas Carols. "Dickens is popular in England, but A Christmas Carol’s ubiquity within the American theatrical tradition is a curiosity.""
