A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is a tale is old as time. (Or, at least, as old as 1843, when it first came out).
But that doesn’t mean it can’t be modernised.
In fact, the BBC’s latest take on the festive story is to make a major character change, it has emerged.
The Ghost of Christmas Present, traditionally played as male, will be female in the new show.
What’s more, the character will be the ghost of main character Ebernezer Scrooge’s dead sister.
Played by Charlotte Riley, the Ghost – along with the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Future – must try to make the miserable and lonely Ebernezer change his ways and embrace the festive season.
‘The character Lottie represents is usually played by that Father Christmas-y type character,’ Riley told RadioTimes.com recently.
‘So I liked the opportunity to play a sibling, which you don’t often see portrayed onscreen.
‘And there’s a lot of depth to sibling relationships.’
She makes a good point.
It should also be noted that in the text version of the tale, the ghost is referred to by the gender-neutral term, ‘it’. It’s only since stage, TV and movie adaptations that we’ve come to expect the character to be male.
Riley also told the publication of the Guy Pearce-starring production: ‘Anyone who has a sibling knows it can be bliss or hell and I think it brings a really interesting dynamic.
‘It functions really well in terms of showing a huge amount more about Scrooge than you would get from the way it’s portrayed in the novel. I think it’s a really smart device that Steven [Knight] has come up with and it’s what attracted me to play the character.’
A Christmas Carol airs on BBC1 on Sunday 22 December at 9pm.
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