The Old Vic's immersive A Christmas Carol restages Dickens's own invention of the modern English Christmas, in Jack Thorne's adaptation directed by Matthew Warchus.
A Christmas Carol, Jack Thorne’s adaptation of Dickens, returns to The Old Vic in Waterloo from Thursday 12 November 2026. Matthew Warchus directs the production the theatre has staged every winter since 2017.
Dickens wrote the novella in six weeks in the autumn of 1843, deep in debt, and published it at his own expense. The first run of six thousand copies sold out by Christmas Eve.
He made almost nothing from it, having priced it too cheaply and bound it too well. The book shaped the Christmas the English-speaking world still keeps: the family dinner, the charity and the duty to the poor.
Thorne, who also wrote the stage adaptation of Harry Potter, builds the piece around Scrooge’s childhood more than the ghosts. The production belongs to The Old Vic itself, so the profits stay in the building.
Each winter the theatre reconfigures its auditorium around a central walkway, with the audience seated on both sides. Handbells and food pass along the rows, and that staging is what The Old Vic means by immersive.
The run closes on Saturday 9 January 2027.