Making a song and dance of Dickens

The production is true to Charles Dickens. The story is quite dark, so to lighten it I, as the choreographer, and Mup Comer, the director, have added humour and a comic slant in some scenes.

A Christmas Carol is a good festive alternative to The Nutcracker. The setting is very traditional and the production has been designed as a theatrical experience for all the family. It is not wholly balletic - there is physical theatre, narration and acrobatics - but ballet sets the mood and atmosphere and is the main expressive element. The narration is read by Eric Sykes.

The main characters are dance parts and I have been choreographing with dancers I knew when I was with English National Ballet - Kevin Richmond (Scrooge, right), Greg Horsman (Bob Cratchit), Emma Greenhalgh (Belle) and Oxana Panchenko (The Ghost Of Christmas Past). When I was a child going to the theatre, I loved watching the scene changes, so I have deliberately made the transformations visible, with the stage crew as part of the show.

There are acrobats and stilt walkers. I don't want to give too much away, but when the Ghost Of Christmas Past enters, she brings two apprentices who are acrobats. The Ghost Of Christmas Present is 10ft tall, obviously on stilts, which makes an impressive sight.

The scenes are set in Scrooge's office and at an inn where he eats his miserable gruel. There is his bedroom, of course, where he is alone and mean as ever and where he is visited by ghosts. The ghost of his dead business partner, Jacob Marley, arrives wrapped in real chains that rattle authentically. I have also incorporated a scene where Scrooge goes back to school and takes his favourite books out of the library. They are Ali Baba and Robinson Crusoe and I have created these as characters to provide a chance for some virtuoso dancing.