A Christmas Carol at a glance

Show
A Christmas Carol
Adaptor
Jack Thorne (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, His Dark Materials)
Director
Matthew Warchus, Artistic Director of The Old Vic
Based on
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, 1843
Venue
The Old Vic, The Cut, London SE1 8NB
2024/25 dates
9 November 2024 – 4 January 2025
2024/25 Scrooge
John Simm (Life on Mars, Doctor Who, Grace)
First Old Vic production
December 2017 with Rhys Ifans
Broadway production
2019 (5 Tony Awards including Best Score)
Running time
Approximately 1 hour 50 minutes, no interval
Age guidance
8+
Set & costume design
Rob Howell
Composition & arrangements
Christopher Nightingale
Lighting design
Hugh Vanstone
Sound design
Simon Baker
Movement
Lizzi Gee
Total raised for charity since 2017
Over £1.9 million globally for food poverty causes

Retrospective Review: A Christmas Carol at The Old Vic 2024/25

4.5
★★★★½

LTH Expert Rating

Reviewed retrospectively by the London Theatre Hub editorial team. Last updated: 13 May 2026.

The Verdict

What was originally intended as a one-off Christmas show in 2017 has become — through eight consecutive returns — London's most-loved theatrical Christmas tradition. Matthew Warchus and Jack Thorne's reinvention of Dickens dissects the Old Vic auditorium with a long catwalk, with audience on both sides, and turns Scrooge's redemption into a participatory communal occasion: mince pies and satsumas handed out at the door, snow falling from the ceiling, Brussels sprouts parachuting into the front rows. Folk-carol arrangements by Christopher Nightingale (sung by the cast and a community choir) replace the story's spookier elements with warmth.

John Simm's 2024/25 Scrooge — coldly menacing in the early scenes, melting visibly across the second half — was Time Out's eighth Scrooge in the series and the seventh straight year a major actor has taken on what has become a coveted London role. Time Out's review of the 2024/25 run called the production still the most glittering bauble on London's Christmas stage. The 2024/25 run reached almost 100% seating capacity across nine weeks and contributed a record £235,000 to Waterloo Foodbank — the highest annual charity total in the production's history.

What made it notable

  • The annual Scrooge tradition. Every year a new major actor takes on Scrooge. The full sequence — Rhys Ifans, Stephen Tompkinson, Paterson Joseph, Andrew Lincoln (in a 2020 live broadcast to 351 care homes), Stephen Mangan, Owen Teale, Christopher Eccleston, John Simm — has become a London casting event in its own right.
  • The catwalk staging. Rob Howell's design dissects the Old Vic auditorium into two banks of audience facing each other across a thrust. It's the most-imitated festive staging idea of the past decade.
  • The Broadway Tony sweep. The 2019 Broadway transfer (with Campbell Scott) won 5 Tony Awards including Best Score and Best Sound Design. The London production has consistently outsold every other West End Christmas show.
  • The charity model. Audience donations after every performance have raised over £1.9 million globally for food poverty charities since 2017. The model has been copied by several other West End productions.
  • Warchus's farewell approaching. Matthew Warchus is due to leave The Old Vic's artistic directorship in autumn 2026, with the 2025/26 (Paul Hilton) and likely 2026/27 returns expected to be his final Christmases in the role. The production may end with him.

Critical Reception (2024/25 Run)

The 2024/25 run with John Simm drew the consistent four-and-five-star reception the production has become known for. Time Out praised the production overall while noting Simm's pre-redemption scenes felt slightly contained, and questioned how many more years the production has left. The Guardian and the Telegraph gave four stars; the Times and WhatsOnStage gave five. The Stage praised the staging and folk-carol score, as did the Standard.

  • The Times ★★★★★
  • WhatsOnStage ★★★★★
  • The Guardian ★★★★
  • The Telegraph ★★★★
  • The Stage ★★★★
  • Evening Standard ★★★★
  • Time Out ★★★★

Source: published reviews of The Old Vic 2024/25 run (November 2024 – January 2025). Star ratings indicative.

About the Production

What happens in A Christmas Carol

The story is Dickens's familiar one, told in 110 minutes without an interval. Ebenezer Scrooge, a wealthy and miserly London moneylender, is visited on Christmas Eve by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley, who warns him that he will be visited by three spirits. The Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge back to his lonely school days, his early apprenticeship under the warm-hearted Mr Fezziwig, and his broken engagement to Belle. The Ghost of Christmas Present shows him the Cratchit family's modest Christmas dinner — with the dying Tiny Tim — and his nephew Fred's Christmas party. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come reveals Scrooge's lonely death, mourned by no-one. Scrooge awakens on Christmas Day, transformed, and spends the rest of the day distributing kindness and his fortune.

Jack Thorne's adaptation makes two structural additions to Dickens. First, the audience is involved physically: the cast walk among the audience handing out satsumas and mince pies before curtain, the choir sings carols throughout, and sprouts parachute from the ceiling at the Cratchits' dinner. Second, Thorne extends Scrooge's backstory: the production opens with the young Scrooge as a child, abandoned at boarding school by his unforgiving father — a sequence that makes the adult Scrooge's hardness feel inherited rather than chosen.

The play's emotional climax — Scrooge's encounter with the Cratchits and Tiny Tim — is staged with the entire company singing and the audience invited to participate. By the closing carol most performances finish with the audience in tears.