A DICKENS OF A CHRISTMAS to Open at Park Theatre in December

Award-winning theatre company Maybe You Like It make their Park Theatre debut this Christmas with A Dickens of a Christmas, a brand-new festive comedy that brings together two of Charles Dickens' rarely told Christmas stories, The Chimes and The Haunted Man, in one gloriously ghostly theatrical adventure.

Featuring the company's trademark blend of lightning-fast multi-roling, larger-than-life characters and joyous theatrical invention, A Dickens of a Christmas takes audiences beyond A Christmas Carol and into the darker, stranger and surprisingly moving festive stories Dickens wrote in the years that followed.

Goblins in church towers show an ordinary messenger visions of the future. A professor takes a ghost's bargain to forget his past. Unearthly children haunt the streets of London.

The fates of a young couple, a sickly student, an outlaw on the run and an oddball family hang in the balance as the clock ticks down to midnight.

Just another Christmas Eve for Charles Dickens...

From the writer of A Christmas Carol, these little-known festive tales are brought vividly to life with Dickens' characteristic wit, imagination and larger-than-life characters. Expect goblins, ghosts, carols, and plenty of Christmas spirits.

Combining the stories of working-class messenger Trotty Veck and the grief-stricken Professor Redlaw, the production explores themes of poverty, empathy, judgement and memory. As Trotty learns to challenge society's assumptions about the poor and Redlaw discovers the dangerous cost of forgetting sorrow, Dickens' timeless lessons about compassion and community emerge with remarkable contemporary relevance.

Following a landmark year that has seen Pleasance Associate Artists' Maybe You Like It score hit London runs, Edinburgh Fringe acclaim and their largest national tour to date, the award-winning company return for the full festive season with a brand-new family show suitable for audiences aged 10 and above.

Writer-director Caleb Barron says, "Charles Dickens had all of these other lessons he wanted to teach us at Christmas time. These stories feel as timeless as A Christmas Carol*, with the same humour and magic but new compelling characters to meet and watch transform."*