Watch our British Sign Language synopsis of A Christmas Carol.

A Christmas Carol is a play about a mean-spirited and selfish old man, Ebenezer Scrooge, who hates Christmas.

One cold Christmas Eve, Scrooge is unkind to the people who work for him, then refuses to give to charity, and then is rude to his nephew when he invites him to spend Christmas with him. When Scrooge gets home, he is visited by the ghost of his old business partner Jacob Marley – and then by three ghosts! They are the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Future.

The Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge on a journey through Christmases from his past, taking Scrooge to see himself as an unhappy child and a young man more in love with money than his fiancée.

The Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge his clerk, Bob Cratchit’s family. At Bob Cratchit’s house Scrooge sees Tiny Tim, who is very ill, but full of spirit. The ghost then takes him to see his nephew Fred’s Christmas celebrations - which he had been invited to but rebuffed.

Finally, The Ghost of Christmas Future terrifies Scrooge by showing him visions of his own death. The ghosts’ journey through time teaches Scrooge the error of his ways. When he wakes up on Christmas Day he is full of excitement, and buys the biggest turkey in the shop for the Cratchit family before spending the day with his nephew, full of the joys of Christmas.

This activity introduces the story and encourages students to make quick decisions as a group. It also allows them to tell a story using their bodies and their physicality. (It is best suited to a hall or large, clear classroom but you could work in smaller spaces by dividing up the group so half can watch and swap over).

• Ask your students to walk around the space with energy and try and fill in any gaps they see to balance the space. Suggest you are all walking on a raft on the sea and need to keep the space balanced between you to keep the raft from capsizing.
• Now ask them to FREEZE. Then call out a number and ask them to get into groups of the number. (With uneven numbers, you can make larger groups, such as groups of 3 and a few 4s etc.).
• Each time you do this, call out the name of something or someone from A Christmas Carol and explain that they must create a frozen image or tableau of that person or thing, using every member of the group. Starter words could include: Ghost / Christmas / Turkey / Graveyard / Poverty / Scrooge.
•  Encourage them to create their images without talking and give them a countdown of 5 or 10 seconds to help.
• Once they get the hang of this, introduce more complex images. Eg: A Christmas wreath; A poor family having Christmas dinner; A rich family having Christmas dinner; Children opening presents; a busy market stall on Christmas Eve; a lonely man eating supper by a weak fire.
• Discuss this activity together. Was it easy to create the images with small groups or large groups? What were the challenges? Did the time constraints help? Do these images give any clues as to what this play is about?

This activity, in 2 parts, takes physical storytelling further by allowing students to work together as a whole group and introduces lines of text with their physical work. (You will need: Resource A - Bah Humbug! from the Resource section at the end of the page). 

 PART A) Bah Humbug!

• Invite your students to sit in a big circle on the floor and explain that this circle is now their stage and that, together, they will be telling part of the story of A Christmas Carol.
•  Explain that you are going to narrate the story, and each time a person, place or thing is named, you will choose a student to come into the circle and represent it physically, just as they did in the last exercise, working around the circle so everyone has a chance to take part.
• Add that sometimes, they may have spoken lines and that you will show them these (or read them for the student to repeat).
• Explain that when the circle gets too full you will clear the stage and ask students to return to their places on the floor, by saying ‘Bah-Humbug!’ (These moments are marked in the story outline but you may wish to add more as you go along).
• As you begin your story, you can invite groups of students to become more complex things (Eg: the enormous desk, or the clock) to encourage them to work together.
• Encourage your students to stay in character until the circle is cleared, making sure they act out what their person, place or thing needs to do in the scene whenever they are mentioned. (Eg: the door slams or creaks open).
• When the group story is finished, discuss the results together: is it easier to remember a story when they see it visually? Which bits were particularly challenging and why? Which particular moments stood out and why?

Part B) Scrooge’s Diary

This writing activity follows directly on from Part A. (You will need: pens and paper).

•  Ask the students to imagine they are Ebenezer Scrooge. What have they learned about him as a character from the story so far?
• Hand out pens and paper and ask each student to write a diary entry, as if they were Scrooge, describing what he saw that night in his house? Did he believe his own eyes? How did he feel? Will he ever tell anyone about this ghostly encounter?
•  Invite students to share their diary entries out loud and discuss the results. Are we learning anything else about Scrooge? Do we learn anything about the relationship between Scrooge and Jacob Marley? What do we want to happen next in the story?

This physical activity, in 2 parts, leads straight on from Bah Humbug! and is designed to encourage students to explore the character of Jacob Marley and his relationship with Scrooge.

Part A) Being Jacob Marley.

(You will need: Pens, drawing materials and paper.)

•  Organise your students into groups of 3 or 4 and give them a few minutes to explore ways of moving as the ghost of Jacob Marley, carrying his chains about with him. Remind them that these chains are attached to heavy cash boxes, keys, ledgers and money-boxes.
• Encourage them to take turns playing the ghost and the objects he is pulling behind him and to pay particular attention to how heavy and noisy these things are: How can they create these noises as a group? How could the objects and chains affect Marley’s movement?
•  Invite some of the groups to show their work and discuss as a group: Why does Dickens have Marley’s ghost dragging these chains and objects? What challenges does having a ghost character bring to an actor and a stage production?
•  Hand out some drawing materials and paper to your groups and ask them to design a costume for the ghost of Jacob Marley. Encourage them to think about what effect Marley should have on Scrooge and on the audience. Should we find him scary? Pitiful? Funny? All of these things?

Part B) Jacob SPEAKS TO scrooge.

Following on, this activity encourages students to make predictions about the rest of the story and explore the characters of Marley and Scrooge. (You will need: Copies of Resource B - Jacob speaks to Scrooge from the Resource section at the end of this page. There is a primary version of this for younger students.)

•  Ask your students to stay in their groups of 3 or 4 and hand out copies of Resource B (using the primary version for younger groups).
• Give the groups 5 minutes to read through the 6 lines and decide how they would like to say these things to an imaginary Scrooge. Encourage them to work as a group, taking turns to be the ghost, speaking in chorus, taking a line each. Jacob could even mine while the others talk.
• Give the groups another 5 minutes to rehearse their speech so every member of the group is used and they are familiar with it (they can read the lines, they don’t need to learn them).
• Invite groups to share their work. When each group has performed, ask one group to stay as Jacob Marley and gather the rest together as an audience.
• Encourage your audience to imagine they are all Ebenezer Scrooge and they are going to listen to Jacob Marley’s message again. This time, they can raise their hand if they have a question for Marley about what he is saying.
• Encourage your Jacob Marley group to stay in character and answer these questions as best as they can, using what they know of the story or what they can make up. If they are not sure of the answer, they can say: ‘WAIT AND SEE!’.
• Discuss the results as a group: What have they learned about Marley and Scrooge? Was sort of relationship did they have? How does Marley feel about his past? Why is he trying to save Scrooge from the same fate? What might Scrooge be feeling now, after this encounter?

“It was a conscious choice by the director, Rachel Kavanaugh, to have the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future played by women. In the traditional story, you’ve got a male character being moved around the stage by male ghosts, it’s a very male-heavy world and that needed to be addressed. The production is much better for having these powerful female characters. They also appear as Mrs Trowell and Lady Tibwell and a Young Caroller, emphasising the fact that Scrooge is being tested.’’

James Bell, Assistant Director, RSC A Christmas Carol, 2022

This performance activity explores what it feels like for Scrooge to revisit his past. It is a group activity which allows students to make quick decisions in their storytelling and to consider what kind of life Scrooge has he led and what man is he now.

(You will need: copies of Resource C - The Ghost of Christmas Past from the Resource Section at the end of this page.)

•  Organise your students into groups of 6 or 7. Explain that they are going to work together to create the journey into Scrooge’s past. One person is going to play the Ghost and must take another group member (as Scrooge) on his journey by reading the text out loud. (This can be done in larger groups if the class is used to working together. For primary groups, you can play the Ghost and work in turns with larger groups, or if you’re feeling brave, the whole class).
•  Explain that the others in the group must listen carefully as the Ghost speaks and move quickly to bring the journey to life, physically creating what is needed along the way. Eg: the young Scrooge sitting at his school desk, the party with the Christmas tree, the Cratchit family dinner. Remind your Ghosts to give the group time to make these images before continuing with the journey!
• Encourage your groups to not just think of physical things they can be with their bodies such as chairs, desks or other people but about the atmosphere they create: Can they create sound effects to help tell the story? Can they make the image of the young Scrooge in school seem more lonely? Is there music and dancing at the party? Is the atmosphere happy, sad or spooky?
•  Challenge them to be as inventive as possible. If the Ghosts say something challenging, how can they rise to it and make it happen? Can they make Scrooge fly? How do they create scenes that have more characters in them than there are people in the group?
•  When they have completed their journeys, invite a member of another group to play Scrooge with a neighbouring group so they are taking different Scrooges on their journey.
• When you have done this a few times, organise your students into two big groups and repeat the exercise with two new Ghosts and two new Scrooges.
• Discuss the experience together: What was it like for the Scrooges? How do they think Scrooge feels to see himself in the first two scenes? How does he feel to see and hear the Cratchit family? What is Dickens wanting us to think about Scrooge? What might happen next to him?

Further Discussion Topic:

• In our production, the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present & Future are played by women. How different is it for Scrooge to be visited by 3 female ghosts? Might it change his experience at all? Does it affect the story in any way?
• How would your students portray these ghosts if they were planning a new production of A Christmas Carol? Could they be figures, people or things we recognise from today’s world?

“A Christmas Carol is an extraordinary book. A lot of people think it’s about Scrooge and ghosts which of course it is but at the heart of it, it’s about poverty and our individual reaction to it. It couldn’t be more relevant today than it has been in the last 30, 40 years.”

RSC actor Adrian Edmondson, playing Scrooge, A Christmas Carol 2022.

Meet Adrian Edmondson who is playing Ebenezer Scrooge in the 2022 production of A Christmas Carol in this 'Meet Scrooge' video. 

This activity encourages students to listen and respond as a group and start to investigate the meaning of poverty and the impact it might have on the individual and society. (You will need: Resource D - Ignorance and Want from the Resource section at the end of this page, a pair of scissors. Large pieces of paper or a white board & pens.)

•  Organise your students into a big circle, sitting down. Cut the FACTS and CHILD lines from Resource D into text scraps and distribute them amongst your pupils, giving one scrap line to one student.
• Explain that these FACTS were all taken from the 1943 Parliamentary Report into the Physical and Moral Condition of Children employed in Mines and Manufactures, in Britain and caused a public outcry when they were published.
• Now explain that you are going to read a stage direction from the play that introduces the characters of Ignorance and Want: 2 children from Victorian Britain, then they are going to listen to the text scraps read out loud in order 1-5.
• Invite your remaining students (without text scraps) to close their eyes and listen to this and to repeat any words that particularly stand out to them after each speaker.
• When they have listened to all the scraps, discuss as a group what they have learnt from listening? What were their working conditions like? Are there any facts that shocked them and why? Which words got repeated? (Ask a volunteer to write these words down on the paper or white board.)
• Encourage them to think of any differences and similarities between the world of these Victorian children and present-day social conditions in the UK and other parts of the world.

This physical activity in 2 parts, leads on from Activity 5. It allows students to explore the theme of poverty in Victorian England and consider any connections between the world of Dickens and our world today.

Part A) MEMORIAL.

(You will need: Resource D, big pieces of paper or a whiteboard and pens.)

• Organise your students into 2 or 3 big groups and give them 10 minutes to create a tableau or frozen image to illustrate children’s’ lives and working conditions in Victorian England based on what they discovered in Activity 4.
• Ask them to imagine they are creating a Memorial in a public space to show people what their life was like.
• Challenge each group to include the characters of Ignorance and one as Want in their tableau (reread the stage direction from Resource D to refresh memories). Remind them to use every member of the group.
• Invite a group to present their frozen image first and ask the other(s) to view the memorial, walking around it to look at it from different angles.
• Ask the visiting group to say any words or feelings that come to mind when they look at the statue. Does the image suggest any particular colours, temperatures or emotions?
• Invite the other groups to show their tableaus in the same way and invite the rest of the class to feedback on their words and feelings that the memorial suggests. Are there any differences or similarities?
• Ask a volunteer from each group to write the words that their group shared on a list on pieces of paper or a whiteboard and display these for the whole group.

Part B) A CHILD’S DIARY.

This leads directly on from Part A. (You will need: paper and pens.)

•  Ask your students to imagine they are a young person living in the conditions they’ve just explored. They might want to select a particular account that they have heard or even to think about Charles Dickens’ experiences as a child (listed in the red box at the top of this section: Exploring The Themes).
• Ask them to write a short paragraph, from the point of view of that child, expressing how they feel and what their life is like. Remind them to include visuals from their frozen images and use any words they generated together on the white board.
• Invite a few students to share their paragraphs. Did any of them think about Ignorance and Want? What do these words mean? What would happen for such children in today’s world and what do they think happened then?

Activity Extension

This activity extension gives students extra time to research the theme of poverty around the world today, helping them to connect to Dickens’ aims as a writer and to the relevance of our 2022 production.

• Hand out the following subjects to your students to research individually or in groups:
  • At what age can children legally work around the world? Are there examples of children working illegally? What is being done about this?
  • Are there any food banks or soup kitchens in or near your local area? How are they run and who uses them?
  • What is a debtors prison? What was life like inside one? Do they exist today?
  • What examples can you find in the news of people struggling today with poverty? Locally and globally?
  • What is being done to fight child poverty in the UK. Was do you think ought to be done and what could young people do about it?
• Encourage them to use a wide variety of sources for this research, including local library, newspapers, interviews with people such as local politicians, social leaders or even elderly relatives.
• Invite your students or groups to present this research to the rest of the class. It could take the form of a class presentation, poem or play that they write themselves. It could be a video or collage, created from raw materials or online.
• Discuss this research as a whole group: what have they learned about Dickens’ theme of poverty in their world today? What would Dickens think of these facts if he was alive today?

Primary Activity Extension:

This activity extension gives students extra time to explore the characters of Ignorance and Want in a creative way and what might happen to them. (You will need: Resource D, art materials, paper).

•  Organise your students into pairs and hand out paper and art materials and ask each pair to draw their own version of Ignorance and Want (read them the stage direction from Resource D to refresh memories) as if they were 2 characters in a cartoon.
• Now ask them to take a new piece of paper and draw 3 big boxes on their paper like a cartoon strip.
• Explain that they will have 10 minutes to plan and draw a cartoon story of Ignorance and Want. The story will have 3 stages:
  • Box 1: Ignorant & Want are hungry and poor and need help.
  • Box 2: Someone decides to help them.
  • Box 3: A happy ending for Ignorance and Want.
• Encourage your pairs to draw speech bubbles in their cartoon if they need to and think about who might help. It might not be Scrooge, it could be someone or something else.
• Invite the pairs to show and explain their cartoon and display them together.
• If you have time, see if they can extend their cartoons into 5 squares by adding more steps to the story.

This writing activity encourages students to consider the ending of A Christmas Carol, when Scrooge has visited Christmas Future and seen his fate and explore what makes him change.

• Discuss the role of the Ghost of Christmas Past in the story. Explain that this Ghost does not speak but silently leads Scrooge to see vivid portraits of a terrible future, including his own deathbed. The Ghost shows Scrooge that he dies alone, just like Jacob Marley, no one attends his funeral and nobody cares he is dead, in fact some people rejoice.
• Ask your students to find and compare the various images of the Ghost of Christmas Future. What are their differences or similarities and what is effective about them? Invite your students to describe the different figures that they see.
• Invite your students to imagine that they are the Scrooge in the future and are able to write a letter to the Scrooge in the present to warn him what might happen if he doesn’t change his ways.
• Organise your students into pairs and ask them to discuss this letter with their partner: What might they want to warn themselves about? What’s bad in the future? What could he change to make sure that doesn’t happen?
•  Invite your students to work individually and write a letter, as future Scrooge to himself in the present, using the following prompts:
  • Think about the boy you once were and imagine what your hopes and dreams had been. Compare these to what your life has become.
  • Think of four or five words to describe how it feels to have no one to care for you and use these in the letter to warn Scrooge.
  • Think of two things that you will promise to change in the way that you live your life and describe these things in the letter.
  • Think about how to address the letter and how to sign off.
• Give them 15 minutes to finish their letters then ask them to swap letters with their partner. Invite them to read the letter aloud as if it was Scrooge reading them in present.

Extension Activity:

Create one Group Letter from these individual letters by using the following steps:

• Ask the students to pick one favourite line from their letter and ask them to write this line down on a piece of paper.
• Explain to the group that you are going to be the spokesperson for the letter and seat yourself at the front of the class.
• Invite the students to contribute by coming up to you and giving you their line when they think it best fits.
• Speak the lines given to you in order. Be sure to remind them that the letter must have a clear beginning, middle and ending.
• You can record this letter on a recording device to remind them of what they made together.

This performance activity, in 2 parts, is aimed at getting students to imagine the difference the changed Scrooge makes to his society and compare this behaviour of one individual making an impact in their own world today.

Part a) Scrooge’s memorial.

(You will need: copies of Resource E - Villain to Hero in the Resource section at the end of this page.)

•  Organise your students into groups of 4 or 5 and hand out copies of Resource E.
• Explain that they are going to explore a future where Scrooge changed his ways and died a public hero. This is the Memorial Day of Scrooge’s death, the city is unveiling a statue of Scrooge and the people who knew him or have been helped by him are going to speak at this unveiling.
• Add that they have 10 minutes to create this and rehearse the unveiling and speeches, using the lines and characters given. Encourage them to add to these lines if they wish to create longer speeches and more characters. (They can play more than one character if they wish.)
• Invite each group to show their Great Unveiling and discuss the results: How would Scrooge feel to see the effect of his generosity? How has his charity in helping the individual spread to helping a country? What do they think of this message that Charles Dickens put in his story?

Part B) A FUTURE HERO (OR HEROINE)

(You will need: pens & paper.)

•  Still in their groups, explain that they are going to repeat the last activity but instead of Scrooge, they are to think of someone in the modern world with the power to make a positive difference in society: a politician, royalty, a celebrity or business leader for example, or they can invent a completely new character of their own.
• Once they’ve made their choice, ask your groups to make a list of people whose lives could be changed for the better by this modern ‘Scrooge’. Remind them to refer to the characters in the last activity for inspiration. How can they show that this person has changed individual lives as well as making a global change?
•  Explain that they now have 15 minutes to write a line or small speech for each of these people and plan their Grand Unveiling of their statue.
• Invite each group to present their Grand Unveiling!

Group Discussion:

• Discuss the results of this last activity as a whole group, asking the following questions:
  • How realistic were the actions of their heroes and heroines?
  • Do we have any examples of people who really have done this in our world and used their position to help?
  • How important are small acts of charity compared to the big?
  • How useful is art and theatre in presenting and challenging these issues and themes?

Activity Extension:

Depending on time and resources, Part B could be done with larger groups or one big group as a larger project on World Poverty. (You will need pens & paper, costumes and props, music)

• From their research, which examples of a hero or heroine could they use or create for their project?
• Take a vote to choose ONE of these and then make a list all the people this person could help (from individuals to groups).
• Organise your students into smaller groups to each work on one person or group from this list and think of all the ways in which their hero/heroine has changed their lives. Give them some time to create a speech for their characters to present at the memorial.
• If you have access to costumes and props at this stage, ask your students to think about how they might use these to present their character at the memorial.
• Invite each group to cast their character or group. Anyone not playing a role at this stage can now form a new group to create the Memorial Statue of their Hero/Heroine while the others rehearse their speeches.
• This memorial will be a group frozen image and must include the following:
  • Two images of the hero/heroine, before and after they devoted their life to good.
  • People who suffered when weren’t charitable
  • People who benefited after they become charitable.
  • What changed their hero/heroine: an event? Dream? Visitation from Ghosts
• From this memorial group, ask for a volunteer whose job it is to explain the memorial statue to the rest of the group.
• Rehearse your unveiling, with music if you have it, following this order:
  • The creation of the Memorial Statue.
  • The explanation of the statue (the story of the Hero/Heroine’s transformation)
  • The guests’ speeches (range from individuals who have helped bigger organisations, showing how this person’s influence has grown and spread).
  • A finale. Discuss as a group how they can close this event: a speech or extract from Charles Dickens? The Statue coming to life? A celebratory dance?