When Leslie Briscusse’s all-star musical version of A Christmas Carol opened at cinemas in 1970 it received little critical acclaim.

But it earned four Oscar nominations – making it the only version of Dickens’ seasonal tale to be recognised by the Academy – and is still a regular on the box every Yuletide.

Home to the song Thank You Very Much, which provides a blackly comic counterpoint to the miserly Scrooge’s funeral procession, Scrooge starred Albert Finney in the title role, Alec Guinness as the ghost of Jacob Marley and Edith Evans and Kenneth More as two of his spirit guides.

It was in 1992 that Bob Tomson first directed a stage version of the film at the Birmingham Alexandra Theatre, starring Anthony Newley as the miser warned to change his ways by the ghost of his former business partner or face horrific torments in the afterlife.

“The movie was a musical already but I had to create a cliffhanger for the audience to come back for act two,” says Tomson.

“We had to put in many more songs as the original movie was only an hour and 25 minutes.”

Scrooge has been played on stage by Shane Richie, Michael Barrymore and Richard Chamberlain in the US but its current star had wanted to play the role since he first saw Newley’s take on the miser.

“Tommy Steele has had an extraordinary number of years in the business but he’s only ever been in a few musicals,” says Tomson.

“He’s only done five in all his productive years because when he finds a musical that works he stays with it – Some Like It Hot, Singin’ In The Rain, Dr Dolittle, Half A Sixpence, they’ve all had about seven years of his life each.

“He fell in love with this show – he’s a big Dickens fan.”

Unlike some of his forebears in the role, 77-year-old Steele resembles his character’s age, which creates its own challenges.

“It’s a marathon for anybody,” says Tomson. “Even Shane, who did it in his early 40s, was knackered after every show. Scrooge is hardly off the stage in the whole two hours – Tommy really gives value for money.”

Speaking to The Argus’s Seven Days writer Nione Meakin, Steele revealed his secret for keeping fit and healthy.

“I do a lot of tennis,” he says. “Two hours a day, five days a week. You have to stay fit. But I never get bored. I’d be quite content to do this every year.”

Steele’s history adds a secret ingredient to his portrayal, according to Tomson.

“Unlike a lot of actors, Tommy has always been connected with cheeky chappie, heart on his sleeve sort of characters,” he says.

“The audience suspect they know how the show will turn out, so even when he’s the miserly man in the first scenes it gives him a lot of licence.”

From the initial Birmingham production, Scrooge has gone on tour across the UK, with productions also reaching the US and Australia.

But when Scrooge went to the London Palladium in 2005 with Steele in the title role Tomson had to up the ante even more.

Creating illusions

“We wanted to create great production values,” he says. “We had the good fortune to work with one of Britain’s leading illusionists.”

Paul Kieve, whose work also appeared in the Harry Potter films, used Victorian stage techniques to create live spectral happenings in front of Scrooge’s eyes.

“With the advent of CGI, audiences see the most extraordinary things in the blink of an eye,” says Tomson, pointing out the Brighton Centre show will be recreating the Palladium experience.

“We can get a bit blasé about it. But when you see an illusion take place in front of your eyes you still get gasps of applause.

“We revise the show every year – we don’t just dust it off as a piece of museum theatre. This year we’ve tried some new lyrics, we’re using Tiny Tim in a different way and we’ve got two or three cheeky visual gags for Tommy. The show is always a living thing.”

In the future, Tomson would love to take the show to Broadway and visit Germany, Japan, China and Canada – all countries with a great love of Dickens.

“The story speaks to us today as it did in the Victorian age,” he says. “It’s a classic shape, the miser given one last chance of redemption via three time scales – the past, the present and a frightening future.

“You don’t have to be religious to appreciate it. It’s a story for all the human condition.

“Most of Dickens’s novels were published in weekly instalments; he sometimes had to write just to keep the wolf from the door and didn’t know how his novels would turn out.

“With A Christmas Carol, he had a strong game plan which he stuck to – the story has got a momentum, where you want to know what happens next.

“It’s a wonderful narrative engine. You’ve got to be really bad to cock up A Christmas Carol – even The Muppets managed [to do it well] with their wonderful anarchic style!”