Dickensian Christmas

Dan Stevens on his new film about the writing of A Christmas Carol

There was a time in Britain when Christmas was not a big deal at all. It was even banned in Puritan days, and by the beginning of the 19th century had dwindled to a minor occasion.

Then in 1843 Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol. And so begins The Man Who Invented Christmas, a film based on the book by Les Standiford. It’s a whirlwind look at the few weeks Dickens (played by Dan Stevens) spent creating his masterpiece, beset by his publishers’ doubts, the sneers of fellow writers, memories of childhood poverty and the intrusive visitations into his life of the characters in his book.

It’s ironic that Dan should play this role, as the shocking death of his character Matthew Crawley in Downton Abbey’s 2012 Christmas special ruined many people’s day. But for Dan it was a chance to examine a period of one of his favourite author’s lives. ‘It’s important to keep Dickens alive,’ says Dan. ‘To appreciate him as a man and not just a dusty tome on the shelf. Everybody admires him, and this particular episode of his life was really exciting.’

As the son of a teacher, Dan has been reading Dickens for as long as he can remember. ‘He was quite a character! The closer you look, the more you see he had two conflicting sides to his personality. One was childish and playful – very silly, with a great sense of humour. The other was deeply depressive, very disturbed by the society he grew up in.’

Although Dickens was middle class for most of his adult life, seeing the seamy depths of 19thcentury England in his childhood turned him into a social crusader. ‘He was very much affected by what he saw going on, conditions that were endemic to the industrial age,’ says Dan. ‘Taken with his sense of humour, that became a theme of his work – the light and the dark, the playful and the silly.’

Although in his 34 years of writing Dickens produced 15 novels, it’s A Christmas Carol that is arguably his best loved. ‘When he wrote it Christmas wasn’t being celebrated much,’ says Dan. ‘He wanted to make a story that spoke to a lot of people, something with a magical realist feeling that could take an awful character – Scrooge – and turn him into something we can learn good from. He turned Scrooge, who embodied so many ills of the age, into one of the most hopeful stories ever, and along the way he invented Christmas, because A Christmas Carol is so much a part of the fabric of how we celebrate the festive season today.’

Dan will be celebrating in New York, where he lives with his wife, jazz singer Susie Hariet, and their children, Willow, eight, Aubrey, five, and baby Eden. ‘There’s always a fierce battle about who gets to put the star on the top of the tree.’

The Man Who Invented Christmas is in cinemas now.

Dan as author Charles Dickens