Packed with Christmas spirit, fun and music, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is being brought vividly to life in a new retelling at Leeds Playhouse by actress and playwright Deborah McAndrew.
The adaptation will be directed by Amy Leach, the Playhouse associate director whose groundbreaking and highly-acclaimed reimagining of Oliver Twist was brought to an abrupt halt by the lockdown in March.
The new show, which runs from December 3-January 9, features actor Jack Lord – last seen at the Playhouse in Oliver Twist – as Ebenezer Scrooge. He will be joined by Stephen Collins and Nadia Nadarajah as Bob and Mrs Cratchit. Stephen was also in Oliver Twist, but Nadia will be making her Playhouse debut.
The cast also includes some familiar faces from the Leeds Playhouse Pop-Up Ensemble, including Dan Parr as Young Scrooge and Fred, Tessa Parr as Christmas Past and Lladel Bryant as Dick Wilkins and Topper.
Everal Walsh will play Marley and Fezziwig, while Lisa Howard takes on the roles of Christmas Present and Mrs Fezziwig.
The Playhouse is offering 1,000 free tickets to the show to NHS workers as part of the #LeedsSaysThanks scheme. Offers for other frontline workers will be available for future productions.
Playhouse artistic director James Brining explained: “This will be a unique and perhaps unusual Christmas for many of us and we want to play our part in helping it to still be a celebratory time, by expressing our heartfelt thanks to the key workers throughout the pandemic. It feels appropriate – and, indeed, is a real pleasure – to show our appreciation on behalf of the Playhouse and our audiences.’
Audiences for the show will be limited, and social distancing and temperature checking will be in place.
More info and book online here