The Old Vic marks ten years of its A Christmas Carol with an Olivier Award winner in the top hat: Giles Terera plays Ebenezer Scrooge in the anniversary staging this November. Here is everything you need to know before you book.
Few seasonal productions have settled into London's calendar as firmly as Matthew Warchus's staging of A Christmas Carol, which returns to the Old Vic this winter for its tenth year. Jack Thorne's adaptation has become a fixture of the building's December since it first opened in 2017, and the anniversary season brings a new Scrooge and a largely new company to a version that many families now treat as a fixed date in the diary.
Who is starring in A Christmas Carol?
Giles Terera leads the company as Ebenezer Scrooge. Around him, Jack North plays Bob Cratchit and Gleanne Purcell-Brown is Mrs Cratchit, while Carly Bawden takes Belle and Annie Wensak the Ghost of Christmas Past. Aiesha Naomi doubles the Ghost of Christmas Present with Mrs Fezziwig, and Edward Harrison plays both Father and Marley.
The rest of the company is Ewan Black (Fred), Khalid Daley (Young Ebenezer), Geraint Downing (Ferdy and George), Kirsty MacLaren (Little Fan), Claire O'Leary (Jess), Alastair Parker (Fezziwig) and Nuwan Hugh Perera (Nicholas and the Schoolmaster), with Hollie Jane Stephens as swing and dance captain and Sam Stones as swing. Four young actors share Tiny Tim: Imuujin Bayarsaikhan, Freddie Merritt, Veronica Aeryn Onu and Hannah Slater. We set out the full casting when it was announced in our September report.
Spotlight on Giles Terera
Many London audiences know Giles Terera best as Aaron Burr in the original West End company of Hamilton, the performance that won him the 2018 Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical. His stage career is far wider than that one role suggests. Before it came the original London cast of Avenue Q and the National Theatre's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom; since it, the title role in Othello at the National, and Blues for an Alabama Sky on the same South Bank stage, the pair that brought him the Critics' Circle award for best actor in 2023. His credits at the Old Vic itself include One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Scrooge asks for something of each strand: the comic timing of the musicals, the weight of the tragedies, and the stamina to carry a story that never lets its central figure off the hook. Casting an actor of his reach as the anniversary Scrooge is a statement that this A Christmas Carol is still being renewed rather than simply revived.
What is A Christmas Carol about?
Charles Dickens's story needs little introduction. On Christmas Eve, the moneylender Ebenezer Scrooge, a man who has made meanness a way of life, is visited by the ghost of his dead partner, Jacob Marley, and warned that three more spirits are on their way. Over a single night the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come walk him through the life he has led, the one he is leading and the one that awaits him, and the question is whether a hardened old man can still be changed in time.
Thorne's version keeps the ghost story but gives real time to the figures who shaped Scrooge, his father and his sister, Little Fan, among them, and the staging pulls the audience into the gloom of Victorian London rather than holding it at arm's length. The age guidance is 8+.
Who is behind the production?
Matthew Warchus, the Old Vic's artistic director, directs, as he has since the first season in 2017; his West End work also includes Matilda The Musical. The adaptation is by Jack Thorne, the writer of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Rob Howell designs the set and costumes, with music composed and arranged by Christopher Nightingale, lighting by Hugh Vanstone, sound by Simon Baker and movement direction by Lizzi Gee. Casting is by Grindrod Burton Casting and Jessica Ronane CDG.
The production has always carried a cause alongside it. The Old Vic has held a charity collection every year since it opened, and those collections have now raised more than £2.3 million worldwide over nine years. This season's beneficiary is FoodCycle, which serves free community meals made from surplus food. "I'm so proud of the magic it has created and, especially, of the money it raises each year for homeless charities and food banks," said Matthew Warchus.
When and where can I see it?
A Christmas Carol runs at the Old Vic on The Cut, a short walk from Waterloo station, for a season that begins on 10 November 2026. Tickets on our show page are available for performances from Thursday 12 November 2026 to the final performance on Saturday 9 January 2027, and the press performance is on Tuesday 24 November. The running time is two hours, including an interval, and tickets currently start at £39.
What else should I book if I like it?
- Pride: the same director and much of the same creative family, with Christopher Nightingale, Hugh Vanstone and Lizzi Gee all on the team, begins at the Bridge Theatre on the same day, Thursday 12 November.
- The Snowman: Raymond Briggs's festive story returns to the Peacock Theatre from 21 November 2026, ideal for younger children who are not yet ready for Marley's ghost.
- Paddington: The Musical: another big-hearted London family story, running at the Savoy Theatre.
- Christmas Carol Goes Wrong: the same Dickens tale, taken apart at speed, at Wyndham's Theatre from 18 December 2026. A sensible companion piece for anyone who knows the original by heart.
A Christmas Carol is booking now at the Old Vic until Saturday 9 January 2027.
