Illustrations by John Leech from the First Edition.
He was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching covetous old sinner! Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me? Even dogs appeared to know him, and then they saw him, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts.
Once upon a time – of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve – old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather, foggy withal. And he could hear people in the court outside, go wheezing up and down.
A Merry Christmas uncle! God save you! cried a cheerful voice.
Bah! said Scrooge. Humbug! If I could work my will, every idiot with Merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.
Bertie and Storynory are pleased to present their first mini-play. Natasha plays many parts, including several ghosts who come to haunt the old miser Scrooge. She is joined by Robert Maloney, who performs as Scrooge with a wonderful snarling voice. Natasha and Rob who acted these roles in the Winter of 05 for Working Space Theatre which tours primary schools. We use this wonderful adaptation by kind permission of its author, Mike Betteridge.