The role of Ebenezer Scrooge invariably attracts quality actors, and Patrick Stewart proves himself worthy company for Alastair Sim, Albert Finney and George C Scott. This TV movie is not the most lavish or inventive adaptation of Charles Dickens's most-filmed tale, but Joel Grey, Desmond Barrit and Tim Potter acquit themselves well as the spirits whose midnight promptings transform Stewart from a penny-pinching curmudgeon into a joyous reveller. There's even a nod towards modernity with the casting of Richard E Grant and Saskia Reeves as the Cratchits. But it's Stewart who holds the piece together, with a performance considerably more subtle than the special effects.

Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.