For those who aren't familiar with Charles Dickens' classic tale Ebenezer Scrooge is an old man who thinks he loves money more than anything else in life. He does not have a good word for anyone and is especially mean with his clerk Bob Cratchit.

The Cratchit family represent everything Scrooge is not. Despite having few possesions they are warm and generous.

Ebenezer Scrooge

It is Christmas Eve and Scrooge goes home to his cold house where he encounters the spirit of his former business partner Jacob Marley who offers Scrooge a chance to mend his ways or share his fate. He warns the old miser that he is to be visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet To Come. Will Scrooge change his ways? As the show's director Tony Lidington says: "It is a morality tale and a ghost story but above all it is timeless."

This is the sixth production of A Christmas Carol Tony has directed. He explains what makes the Lawrence Batley Theatre's production different: "We wanted to find a way of the traditional story of A Christmas Carol reflecting the contemporary world of the Lawrence Batley without detracting from the Victorian context or losing the original language. It is a multicultural cast and Kirklees is a multicultural district - it was inevitable that our influences would be from somewhere other than just Northern Europe!

"We have set Scrooge & Marley's business world in that of the manufacturers and distributors of slave-produced goods.

"All the ghosts are inspired by Afro-Caribbean imagery and sounds, they are not the conventional interpretation of Past, Present and Future - and a lot more fun!"

A Christmas Carol runs at Huddersfield's Lawrence Batley Theatre from Tuesday 7 December 2004 to Friday 31 December 2004