All-Star Cast Lines Up for Charity Reading of A Christmas Carol at the Lyric Theatre
Jim Broadbent, Imelda Staunton, Matthew Macfadyen and Emma Corrin are among the names attached to a one-night-only live reading of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol at the Lyric Theatre in London on Monday 7 December, with all proceeds going to the homelessness charity Crisis. WhatsOnStage
The announced cast also includes Adjoa Andoh, Paapa Essiedu, Alex Lawther, Bella Ramsey, Tanya Reynolds and Grace Savage. Bessie Carter directs. The Lyric, on Shaftesbury Avenue, is a commercial West End house — currently home to long-running musicals and one-off events alike. Tickets go on sale at 12pm on Tuesday 1 September.
Every pound raised from the evening will support Crisis and its work with people experiencing homelessness, including housing advice, employment opportunities and training. The charity, founded in 1967, operates across Britain and offers year-round services beyond the winter months that Dickens' story is traditionally associated with.
The format — actors sharing a single text from the stage, no full staging — echoes Dickens' own public readings of A Christmas Carol, which he began in 1853. His first such reading was itself a charity event, held in Birmingham. The author continued performing the story publicly for years, often to packed halls.
The cast brings a wide span of British stage and screen talent. Broadbent and Staunton are Olivier Award winners with decades of West End and screen work between them. Macfadyen won a Bafta for his turn in the television drama Succession. Corrin played Diana, Princess of Wales in The Crown. Ramsey starred in the video-game adaptation The Last of Us. Essiedu, an RSC-trained actor, earned an Olivier nomination for Hamlet. Andoh, an award-winning narrator of over 150 audiobooks, recently directed and starred in Richard III at the Rose Theatre in Kingston. WestEndTheatre
For audiences, the appeal is straightforward: a familiar story, a cause with tangible outcomes, and a cast you would rarely see share a single stage. One night only, no extension, no transfer — the kind of event that fills a theatre precisely because it cannot be repeated.
Whether 900 strangers go quiet at the same moment will be known on 7 December. Until then, the clock starts at noon on 1 September.
