About

The Telling presents a new theatre piece with music, by Arts Richmond Radio-Play Competition Winner, Clare Norburn and BAFTA-nominated director Nicholas Renton.

It's Charles Dickens' last Christmas Eve: 1869. Against his doctor's wishes, he gives one of his acclaimed theatrical readings of A Christmas Carol, but from the moment the lights go down, his life becomes strangely entangled with Scrooge's. Dickens' carefully managed image as a family man, who has created the very quintessence of Christmas, starts to unravel as he is haunted by the women he mistreated: his wife and mother of his ten children, Catherine Dickens and his mistress, Ellen 'Nelly' Ternan. The "ghosts" force him to face his past, present and future. Can Dickens learn from them, repent - and be saved, as Scrooge was saved?

The drama is soundtracked live by colourful Victorian popular songs, street music and carols performed by a multi-talented cast of 7 who sing, dance and play instruments: sometimes all at the same time.