Jim Broadbent may be the name driving the box office for the biggest of London’s several Christmas Carols this year – it is his first stage appearance in a decade – but the show itself is propelled at least as much by Samantha Spiro. Broadbent and adapter Patrick Barlow go back a long way, to their 1980s collaborations as two-man shambles the National Theatre of Brent. In that set-up, Broadbent was the more intentional comedian; in A Christmas Carol, however, even when an adaptation such as Barlow’s raises the comedy level, Scrooge is naturally the straight man in his own story. He eventually gets to frolic and revel in his silliness once he is reborn as a kind and considerate man on Christmas morning, but with the four spirits who teach him the hard lessons necessary for this transformation, Scrooge tends to be the butt, even for the sepulchral Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

Spiro, in contrast, gets to dust off her excellent Barbara Windsor turn (seen in the NT production Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle And Dick and its film version Cor, Blimey!) for an irrepressible Cockney Ghost of Christmas Present, as well as taking the focus of romantic sentimentality as the younger Scrooge’s neglected fiancée and visiting all points between at assorted moments. Broadbent is the only actor not taking multiple roles; the rest of the cast number but four, plus a couple of puppeteers and props people.

Director Phelim McDermott and designer Tom Pye have captured the joy of playmaking and storytelling. The stage is dominated by an enormous cut-out Victorian toy theatre, with individual sets which turn like the leaves of a book. Daft touches abound: when the Ghosts take Scrooge flying through the air, the puppeteers adorn them with artificial legs which appear to move with the dynamics of the flight, and when Scrooge is returned to a scene of his rural childhood it is against the backdrop of John Constable’s The Hay Wain. Towards the end the players even break the fourth wall and acknowledge the audience; this element is only patchily successful, but it is part of the motivating notion that we are sharing this tale and are all part of the fun together.

Written for the Financial Times.