A Christmas Carol at the Old Vic: Warms even the coldest cockles

There is audience involvement, if not participation, from the jump. Mince pies from street hawkers on arrival, then satsumas and snowballs whizzing through the air. A giant lantern swings from the rafters like a demented pendulum. When Scrooge commandeers his nephew’s Christmas dinner for the poor-but-happy Cratchit, bedsheets unravel from the balcony to the stalls to funnel potatoes, links of sausages must be passed hand over hand, and sprouts parachute down from the gods.