SPOOKY THRILLERS

’Tis the season for a ghost story, and this year there are three brilliant spine-chillers – including a very different take on A Christmas Carol from the Peaky Blinders creator

34 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

22-24 december, 9Pm (9.05Pm, 23 december), bbc1

Scrooge is one of the few characters so embedded in our psyche that his name has a meaning all of its own – a miser who hates Christmas. But what made him this way? Understand that and you’ll see Scrooge in a very different light, believes writer Steven Knight, who has created a very different version of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol for BBC1.

Steven, the man behind Peaky Blinders, aims to make us feel some sympathy with old Scrooge. And to help, he’s cast Hollywood actor Guy Pearce as the legendary meanie. ‘I think when Dickens was writing, his readers took characters as they were. But the question of, “Why is he like that?” will appeal to modern audiences,’ says Steven. ‘He has so many flaws that I wanted to find out what had gone on.

That’s why Guy was such great casting. I liked the idea that Scrooge could be attractive if he wasn’t the way he is, and Guy has that intangible thing of being able to play someone unsympathetic while keeping the audience on his side.’

This Christmas Carol starts in familiar territory. The Victorian Streets are snowy, the poor are begging and Scrooge is making his clerk Bob Cratchit (Joe Alwyn) work longer than he needs to. But this Scrooge has swagger.

‘There’s something twisted about him in the original, but we wanted somebody far more contemporary,’ says Guy. ‘This is a bullish businessman with bravado. On the surface he isn’t so obviously damaged, but bullies have often been bullied before, and once we delve into his past we utterly crack open the character.’

At the heart of Scrooge’s pain is his ex-business partner Marley (Line Of Duty’s Stephen Graham), and he’s the key to trying to save him. ‘At the start Marley’s in purgatory for his sins and he’s told he can only be set free if Scrooge does the right thing. He has the task of making Scrooge redeem himself and he begins to see the error of his own ways,’ says Stephen Graham.

There to help is the Ghost of Christmas Past, played by

Andy Serkis. ‘There have been countless incarnations of this story but this version is unique,’ says Andy. ‘It’s an anatomy of what it is to be selfish. Scrooge believes human beings are selfish so he’s a huge challenge for the Ghost of Christmas Past – but he likes a challenge.’

Snow, ghosts, good and evil, redemption and sin – and storybook characters like Ali Baba come to life... it’s no

surprise A Christmas Carol is a perennial favourite, and Guy says he hopes this version will make it even more relevant. ‘All of us have felt hurt, and hurt others along the way. So the idea of a character who’s forced to look at his past, at what’s been done to him and what he’s done to others, will mean a lot to many of us. It’s scary to say, “Please forgive me”, but it’s rewarding.’

Andy Serkis plays the Ghost of Christmas Past