A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story

The Verdict

Mark Gatiss's A Christmas Carol returned to Alexandra Palace Theatre for a third Christmas in 2025–26, and on this evidence it has every claim to becoming the city's signature alternative to The Old Vic's annual Jack Thorne adaptation. Gatiss's particular insight — and it is a real one — is that Dickens's novella was always a ghost story first and a sentimental tale second. He plays it accordingly. Marley's chains are properly terrifying; the Ghost of Christmas Past is unsettling rather than ethereal; the visions of Christmases Future arrive with the weight of a Victorian horror story. The Telegraph's "irresistibly theatrical" five-star verdict on the original 2021 production has stayed broadly intact across all three Ally Pally seasons.

For 2025, Matthew Cottle reprised the Scrooge he played in 2023 with audible improvement — a tighter, more economical performance that earns the late-act redemption rather than rushing toward it. Neil Morrissey's Jacob Marley brought the celebrity-casting weight of Men Behaving Badly and Bob the Builder to one of the production's signature scenes, and he played it without irony. Around them, Adam Penford's direction kept the production's distinctive use of the half-restored Ally Pally theatre at the centre of the experience: the building itself is a character, its peeling Victorian paint and stalled-time atmosphere doing as much theatrical work as anything in Paul Wills's design.

What Makes It Special

• The Alexandra Palace Theatre itself. The half-restored Victorian theatre — preserved deliberately in its arrested state, with peeling paint, exposed brickwork and original features intact — is unlike any other commercial London venue. For a Victorian ghost story, the room is the production's most important design choice.
• Mark Gatiss's adaptation prioritises the supernatural. Where most Christmas Carols emphasise the heartwarming arc, Gatiss leans into the chill: Dickens called his novella "a ghost story of Christmas" and Gatiss takes that at its word. The result is one of the few Christmas-set productions in London that genuinely works as a horror piece for adults.
• Dickensian stage effects. Paul Wills's design, Philip Gladwell's lighting, Nina Dunn's video projections and Ella Wahlström's sound design combine to create what the production calls "Dickensian, spine-tingling special effects" — properly engineered Victorian theatre rather than digital flash.
• Matthew Cottle's returning Scrooge. Cottle's second turn in the role brought the kind of incremental refinement that only comes from sitting with a part across multiple seasons. His Scrooge earns the late-stage transformation through detail-work rather than gear-shifts.
• The Nottingham Playhouse pedigree. The production originated at Nottingham Playhouse under Adam Penford's direction in 2021, and has toured to Birmingham Rep alongside its three Ally Pally seasons. The continuing creative team — Penford directing, Wills designing, Gatiss adapting — has refined the production with each return.