Stage to screen: A Christmas Carol

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (From stage to screen mini-series, episode 173) is a short documentary about A Christmas Carol and how it travelled from the page to the stage and the screen. It starts with Dickens reading his own story on stage in 1853, then tells how he wrote it in about six weeks in 1843 and how quickly it sold. It sums up the story (Scrooge, Marley's ghost, the three spirits, Christmas morning), then follows the London theatre versions of 1844, Dickens's own readings in Britain and America, the silent film of 1901 and the many films since, one of them with the Muppets. It ends with "a Scrooge" in everyday English and Mr Fezziwig dancing in John Leech's picture from the first book. The ghosts are kept light. No grammar point is taught. It is a listening comprehension episode: learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 9 on facts and 1 on vocabulary (a Scrooge). The study topic is how one story travels from the page or the stage to the screen, and what changes on the way.

Materials & prerequisites

The folder holds the audio, the slideshow and the script; there is no lesson plan. The pupil pack and the teacher pack (answers highlighted) are one A4 page each, with the text, three pictures (a drawing of Scrooge counting his coins, C. A. Barry's 1867 drawing of Dickens reading, John Leech's picture of Mr Fezziwig's Ball), the key words and the 10 questions; a pupil sheet and a teacher sheet with the answer key come with them. The text ends with an open question (Think about it: Would you like to see this story on stage or on screen?). Teachers may want to check beforehand that learners can read dates. The pack's key words explain the new words (stage, desk, voice, copy, sell out, rich, ghost, partner, spirit, future, version, silent).

Curriculum alignment

Tagged artistic-languages-and-messages (axis 5, "Langages et messages artistiques"; objet d'étude "Des planches aux plateaux de cinéma"), Cycle 4 (4e). The episode targets CEFR level A2+.