Ghost Stories For Christmas

Shutter up the windows, dim the candles and settle by the fire for a Christmas ghost story, told by no less than Charles Dickens.

Here are three of Dickens’s Christmas ghost stories: not only A Christmas Carol, but The Chimes and The Haunted Man. Their words unlock a world teeming with goblin-infested bells – with dark and shadowy doubles – with Ghosts of Christmases Past and Present and Yet To Come. These tales chill the marrow and tickle the funny bone, but always they enchant, as only the works of a master storyteller can.

The ghost stories are acted by James Swanton, who over the last year has played the title roles in two BBC chillers: ‘The Curse of the Ninth’ in Inside No. 9 and Lot No. 249, Mark Gatiss’s annual ghost story, for which The Telegraph called James ‘the scariest man on TV this Christmas’.

His work with Dickens includes his one-man play Sikes & Nancy at the West End’s Trafalgar Studios (‘fantastical … remarkable … startling and enthralling’ – Simon Callow) and sell-out seasons of the Christmas Books at London’s Charles Dickens Museum (‘extraordinary … superb … it couldn’t have been more vivid!’ – Miriam Margolyes).

This promises to be a seasonal treat like no other. For these ghost stories are the very spirit of Christmas: enchanting, exuberant and ultimately redemptive.