Christmas spirit and celebration have come once again to Pateley Playhouse in Nevin Ward’s joyful adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.

With expressions of love and mutual support going straight to the heart, it brings a dramatic and musical sense to our ideas of happiness and hope for a better future.

Dickens described the Christmas holiday as “a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of other people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”

This was what he described for the rest of his life as the “Carol Philosophy”.

To promote the idea he decided to throw himself “on the feeling of the people” in a range of Christmas Books. A Christmas Carol was the first of five, written in 1843 and particularly structured in musical terms. The term “Stave” is unusually used to mark its Chapters (ie. Stave 1 = Chapter 1) as if meaning each is a verse or stanza of a song. In past times the word Carol meant a song of joy originally accompanying a dance, so the title and story are rooted in Dickens’ ideas of Christmas goodwill, encouraging us to open up our hearts, share our good spirits, sing, dance and be joyful together.

Nevin Ward’s musical interpretation takes this on board and it is what makes his production so very special. The well-known tale, with its Christian themes of transformation and redemption, is given a popular turn by the singing of local carols, from Cornwall, Sussex, Yorkshire and elsewhere, with words relevant to the play’s text and story development. From the opening “Nowell and Nowell” there is emphasis on the communal nature of the songs, as one caroller on stage is gradually joined by others to form a large carol-singing group with audience participation.

And if any song exemplifies the message of A Christmas Carol, it is “The Ditchling Carol” ... “and O remember, gentles gay, for you who bask in fortune’s ray, the year is all a holiday, the poor have only Christmas”.

The frozen-hearted Ebenezer Scrooge is played by Peter Buller in a finely calibrated performance, his better nature all creased and withered – “are there no prisons, are there no workhouses?”

The moralising carol “Christmas Is Now Drawing Near At Hand”, much sung in the past by beggars and others at seasonal fairs and markets and here movingly sung by Brenna Smith, is used to give sharp profile to his mean and parsimonious nature and his inability to see the needs of others.

Jaxom Smith plays Child Scrooge in school with a touching naivety and newcomer Tom Jansen as Young Scrooge demonstrates the miserly passion that has taken root.

Keith Burton, brilliantly infernal as Marley’s Ghost with clanking chains, plays him as having a moral concern for charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence.

The three Ghosts of Christmas Past Present and Yet To Come, played by the nostalgic Christine Ward, the jovial Jerry Harvey and the eerie Jo Jefferson, haunt Scrooge with his unhappy past, and show him a present in which the long-suffering Cratchits endure their losses but stay big-hearted. In contrast, there lies before him his own inevitably bleak future in the deserted graveyard.

The dialogue sits well. The scene between Young Scrooge and Belle, touchingly played by Heather Appleton, comes across as elegiac and emotionally strong.

Nevin Ward and Linda Harvey as Mr and Mrs Fezziwig are infinitely hospitable, with the carol “The Season of Holly and Ivy” and the lively dance that follows emphasising the merriment of their Christmas Ball.

The Christmas scene at the Cratchits is full of good cheer, an affectionate family atmosphere created as much by the singing of the ancient “Cherry Tree Carol” as by the warm performances of Steve Rouse and Rachel Smith as Bob and Mrs Cratchit.

Mia Hirst as older sister Martha and delightful newcomers Toby-Joel Eddy and Elizabeth Dean-Walter add to the family glow.

And their humble meal is given grandeur and importance by the full-on four part harmony of the old “Christmas Goose” [“Boar’s Head”] carol.

When Scrooge’s health is drunk and Tiny Tim, represented with aplomb by Callum Bruce, pipes up “God bless us everyone” the very pitch of magnanimity is reached - felt not only by the old curmudgeon but by everyone in the Playhouse.

This feeling of good fellowship carries over into the terrific party at Nephew Fred’s house where Fred is played with great bonhomie by Michael Thorne, and we all join in the hilarious fun of “Under the Mistletoe” led by the exuberant Carol Bailey.

There are wonderful costumes for over a hundred characters, skilfully designed and made by Christine Ward – including a stunning outfit for the Ghost of Christmas Present, carrying a holly berry crown and glowing staff.

Sue Hickson’s evocative sound effects and video and image projection onto a back screen offers scenes that conjure past and future possibility, and there are superb staging effects by the Playhouse team under Stan Appleton, including an atmospheric lighting plot by Steve Hunt.

The production has a talented cast of twenty-four adults and children in many different parts on stage and on film, exemplified by Debbie Forsyth and Steve Boast's polished performances in the pawnshop scene.

The cast act, sing and play instruments (principally Steve Rouse on melodeon & Fiddle), and there are lots of voices to give variety to the various roles.

Is it impossible to redeem the Past? The result of opening Scrooge’s eyes is his conversion to “Carol philosophy” thus offering him the opportunity to become a better and happier man and make other people happier.

As his redemption begins the carol singers give vent to a fabulous tune with a glorious rolling bass line in the well-known words of Charles Wesley’s “Three Harks (Hark the Herald Angels Sing)”. This is a fine example of the South Yorkshire/North Derbyshire tradition of setting familiar carol words to lesser-known tunes and it is heart warming to share in a tradition that has gone on for so long and hasn’t really changed.

The singing throughout is just wonderful.

Scrooge’s heart melts with compassion and he learns to be the good master, the good friend, the good man. The lovely carol “Peace o’er the World” is given full voice to celebrate his reconciliation, with the final verse proclaiming the Christmas message: “Let trumpets sound and hail His royal birth, For Christ the King is come to reign on earth”.

The tradition of Christmas, Christian kindness and the explosion of goodwill illuminated by the flames of punch and by the communal singing, the ghosts given a kind of holiday at the winter solstice - all are combined into a brilliant mix of music and song, dance and good fellowship, concluding in the great “Wassail Wassail”.

This is A Christmas Carol which truly celebrates Christmas.