THEMANWHOINVENTEDCHRISTMAS(PG)**

IN the third stave of Charles Dickens’s morality tale A Christmas Carol, the narrator pithily observes “there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour”.

Director Bharat Nalluri evidently agrees because his perfectly timed adaptation of Les Standiford’s book, about the tumultuous events leading to the publication of Dickens’s 1843 novella, is steeped in festive cheer.

Putting aside the veracity of the film’s title, The Man Who Invented Christmas is a family-friendly jaunt that melds historical fact and literary fantasy a la Shakespeare In Love.

The halls of Susan Coyne’s script are decked in Victorian-era period detail and unabashed sentimentality, drawing parallels between Dickens’s upbringing and Ebenezer Scrooge’s painful journey of self-realisation.

Downtown Abbey pin-up Dan Stevens adopts a shaggy mane, not too dissimilar from his flowing locks in Beauty And The Beast, as one of the titans of English literature, whose career was in the doldrums before Jacob Marley’s ghostly chains rattled in his imagination.

Less than two years after Oliver Twist has enchanted readers around the world, Dickens is crippled with self-doubt and facing financial ruin.

“My lamp has gone out, I’ve run out of ideas,” he laments to his long-suffering wife Kate (Morfydd Clark), who takes care of their brood with the help of housekeeper Mrs Fisk (Miriam Margolyes).

The arrival of a new Irish nursemaid Tara (Anna Murphy) sparks Dickens’s creative flow and he visualises a seasonal tale of redemption, which unconsciously draws on his troubled