Christmas Eve… A time for joyful anticipation, celebration and goodwill to all!

Perhaps not all.

To the poor and the hungry in Victorian London, Christmas Day was just another day to struggle through.

And for Ebeneezer Scrooge it’s a day lost, with business left undone and money misspent. Happy Christmas? Bah! Humbug!

But tonight, this special night, Scrooge will be forced to confront the choices he has made, the opportunities he’s missed and bleak future that lies ahead, unless he can change…

Although Charles Dickens wrote many classics, from Oliver Twist to Great Expectations, there is surely no tale of his more famous, or heart-warming, than A Christmas Carol.

Written in 1843, Dickens paints his protagonist in dreary colours. Ebeneezer Scrooge is a mean-spirited, grasping and bitter individual, shorn of all the things that make a life worth living by choice. Though wealthy, his existence is impoverished, begrudging spending his hard-earned coin on anything that might provide a crumb of comfort, either to himself or those around him.

He treats his employee with disdain, his nephew as a fool.

But on one Christmas Eve, he is forced to look hard at what he has done with his life, and what his actions have meant for others. Three spirits, the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, show Scrooge where he has come from, where he is now, and the cold, unloved end of his days on the path he is destined to take. Will he change his ways? Can he change?

A time-honoured story of redemption, with love, laughter, song and a warmth to melt even the meanest misers’ heart, Theatre Workshop Coulsdon will be performing A Christmas Carol at the Coulsdon Community Centre this December.

And in 2023, 180 years after Dickens wrote of the terrible conditions, hunger and poverty in Victorian London, Theatre Workshop Coulsdon will be using their production of his work to encourage donations to a food bank for the hungry and poor of Croydon.

As one of their members, Paul Ford, says, “We are also pleased to be able to partner with the Purley Food Hub for this production.

“Dickens was a social reformer and the plight of families and children with little food, especially at Christmas, was a source of concern reflected in his writing and emphasised in this version of his story.

“A Purley Food Hub collection point for food donations will be set up at the Community Centre where we’ll be performing A Christmas Carol for the duration of the run of the show, from December 9 to December 17.

“Come along, enjoy the show and perhaps make Christmas a little better for someone else, too.”

For ticket bookings and more information about the Theatre Workshop Coulsdon, visit their website by clicking here

• Inside Croydon – as seen on TV! – has been delivering local community news since 2010. 3million page views per year in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
• If you want real journalism, actually based in the borough, you should consider paying for it. Please sign up today. Click here for more details

• If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at [email protected]

• As featured on Google News Showcase

• We offer FREE ads to community groups when they have members who are paid subscribers to Inside Croydon

• Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content

• Our comments policy can be read by clicking here

• Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network

• Inside Croydon works together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as well as BBC London News and ITV London

• ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SIXTH successive year in 2022 in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine