Christmas gift that keeps giving
WHAT the Dickens! A
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Christmas Carol seems to be more popular than ever with a string of adaptations hitting screen and stage.
Spirited, a musical starring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds and told from the ghosts’ point of view, started on Apple TV+ last week, while a new animated version is due to be launched on Netflix on Friday.
Sherlock star Mark Gatiss’
★ adaptation is in cinemas for one day on Thursday while Adrian Edmondson is playing Scrooge on stage in Stratford-upon-Avon. But how much do you know about the Charles Dickens classic? has 12 facts.
Published in 1843, A
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Christmas Carol tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miser visited by the ghost of his late business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come.
After their visits, Scrooge is
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transformed into a kind man who helps those less fortunate, including his overworked and underpaid clerk Bob Cratchit and his sick son Tiny Tim, who was inspired by the writer’s nephew.
Dickens left school at
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12 to work in a rat-infested boot-blacking factory when his dad John was jailed for debt, which made him interested in social justice.
When he wrote the novella,
4 originally intended to be a political manifesto, thousands of children lived in poverty and disease. In 1839, nearly half of funerals in London were for children aged under 10. 5 It took him just six weeks to finish after he wrote every day and roamed the streets at night. It hit the shops on December 19 and sold out in three days. By the end of February there were eight stage versions in London.
Dickens was the first writer to
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give public readings and A Christmas Carol was the first one he conducted. On reading days, he drank rum and cream for breakfast, a pint of champagne for tea and a sherry with a raw egg shortly before going on stage.
Celebrating Christmas was
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just catching on when he wrote the novel, which boosted interest in the festive season.
It has spawned more than 20
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film adaptations including 1992’s The Muppet Christmas Carol, which featured Michael Caine as Scrooge and Kermit the frog as Bob Cratchit.
Scrooge, or versions of him,
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have been played by Alastair Sim, Sir Patrick Stewart, Jim Carrey, Simon Callow and Tim Curry. The first Scrooge adaptation was a six-minute short called Marley’s Ghost in 1901.
A Christmas Carol is also responsible
10 for the greeting “Merry Christmas”. But Scrooge’s catchphrase “Bah, humbug!” is only said twice.
Despite selling out its 6,000
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initial copies quickly, it cost so much to produce that the author struggled to make money from it.
Real-life Scrooges appeared
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to change their ways as a result. After its publication there was a rise in charitable giving.