This is the eighth year that the Old Vic, a theatre known to Charles Dickens, has staged its classy production of A Christmas Carol. The show has played on Broadway (where it won five Tonys), toured America and been performed in Australia, and for some London theatre-goers it has become as much a staple of the festive season as Christmas trees, silly jumpers and roast turkey.

Directed by Matthew Warchus and adapted by Jack Thorne from Dickens’s 1843 novella, the show remains essentially the same from year to year but Ebenezer Scrooge is always played by a different actor. There are enthusiasts who boast online of having seen all eight. The first was Rhys Ifans in 2017, last year it was Christopher Eccleston, this Christmas it is John Simm.

A Christmas Carol is performed in the round on a cross-shaped stage with characters entering and exiting from left and right, front and back. Above, a galaxy of Victorian lanterns twinkle. Four door-frames, one at each arm of the cross, rise from the stage to form the counting-room at the centre of money-lender Scrooge’s mean, hemmed-in little world. Strongboxes removed from their hiding places in the floorboards are used to assemble various items of furniture.

It’s Christmas Eve and miserly, mean-hearted Scrooge — in a striking pink coat — is, of course, working late and bullying his put-upon employee Bob Cratchit into doing the same. Scrooge is infuriated first by a visit from Christmas carollers and then by his nephew inviting him to Christmas dinner on the morrow. But next his dead partner Jacob Marley, bound in heavy chains that run the length of the stage, turns up to warn him that even less welcome visitors are on their way.

We all know what happens — the elevator pitch would be “miserable old bugger sees the light after a series of ghostly visitations” — and Thorne’s adaptation doesn’t meddle with the basic elements but helps us understand why Scrooge is like he is by showing us scenes from his past: we see him beaten by his drunken, debt-mired father; playing with his beloved sister, Fan, who died; dancing with Belle, the woman he’d hoped to marry. 

Simm is the big name here and his carefully modulated performance perfectly traces the arc of Scrooge’s redemption, from “covetous sinner”, as the Chorus has it, to a changed man “determined to keep Christmas in my heart”, but A Christmas Carol is very much an ensemble piece. The female ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, in costumes cut from the same cloth as Scrooge’s coat, the Cratchit family, including their lame son, Tiny Tim, Belle — they all have great lines and bits of business.

This is also a show stuffed full of theatricality. There is trickery that depends on split-second timing and pleasingly old-school misdirection. There are surprising special effects. The sound design is particularly effective. Carols are woven throughout the play, with lovely arrangements of, among others, “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”, the “Coventry Carol” and “See, amid the winter snow” underlining its Christian message. There are laughs, some genuinely creepy moments and the final act, in which Scrooge seeks to make amends for his past wrongs, is an utter uplifting delight.

Look, Christmas can be bloody hard work. It’s expensive, you don’t like sprouts, you’ll probably have to spend time with people you can’t stand and there’ll be a “festive” episode of Mrs Brown’s Boys on the telly. The irreligious among us, such as myself, would quite happily fast-forward to mid-January. But, by Christ, by the time we got to Tiny Tim’s “God bless us, every one” I was so filled with the Christmas spirit, I was ready to go to church.

“Not a dry eye in the house” might be an old cliche but it’s entirely appropriate here. It’s difficult to imagine even the most “Bah! Humbug!” of curmudgeons remaining unmoved by this affecting show. It really does capture something magical.

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A Christmas Carol at www.oldvictheatre.com runs until January 4