Everyone knows Dicken’s Christmas Carol, right? Tight old miser (Ebenezer Scrooge) undergoes a personality transplant after a sleepless night at the hand of several gloombearing ghosts. Wrong.

“People know the story but they don’t know it the way we’re doing it,”

says Alan Perrin, the man who is directing the Brighton Theatre Collective show. “I’ve filleted the whole story. I’ve got it down to an hour. All the main elements of the original story are there but I’ve had to change a few things.” Such as?

“Well we can’t have Marley the ghost with all his chains because we don’t have the budget for that.”

But audiences needn’t worry, this is no cut-price Christmas Carol.

“Rough magic, I call it,” says Perrin.

“It’s about creating atmospheres and casting spells.”

By this he means, instead of expensive, flashy effects, there is atmosphere, soundscapes, mime and no costume changes. “It’s all very pared down and simple.”

Perrin was already more than familiar with the story after directing a version at the Nightingale Theatre in Brighton. “This is a new and improved version – like the soap powder,” he says. “I’ve kept some things from the old version but really I’ve come to it fresh and the BTC is a new company, so they have their own ideas, too.”

Thanks to all of these factors Perrin says he has “hit the ground running” with the play – which is just as well considering he’s also starring in the West End production of the 39 Steps. “It’s a relentless pace,”

he admits, “but the bulk of the work, the adapting, had been done before.”

The Brighton-based actor, who has worked with the likes of the RSC and the National Theatre, is managing to juggle the two jobs by doing rehearsals in the day and nipping off to London for his evening performances at The Criterion. “It’s fine, apart from when I have a matinee. It keeps me out of trouble and the BTC are a splendid company of nine, working tirelessly to get the show on.”

For those who are unfamiliar with the BTC, it was set up earlier this year by Janette Eddisford and Daniel Finlay. They’re both behind Brighton theatre school, the Academy Of Creative Training in Rock Place, and have settled on the Old Ship as a venue for the company’s work.

Taking inspiration from the likes of the similarly unfunded Globe Theatre, Eddisford has high hopes for the company: “We’re very serious, very experienced and very determined to make the Brighton Theatre Collective a company which will join the ranks of Hull Truck, Coventry Belgrade, Manchester Royal Exchange – a unique Brighton theatre brand which both serves the city and exports quality work across the UK and Europe.”