Patrick Stewart is widely known for playing Captain Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Professor X in the X-Men films. In 1988, however, he created a very different acting challenge: a one-man adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. He wrote the stage version himself and performed around 40 roles in a single evening.
The project began with a discovery in 1985. While waiting to work on the film Lady Jane, Stewart picked up an old copy of the book. He enjoyed it so much that he shortened the story for a reading at a local church.
As Star Trek became successful, Stewart worried that television would leave little room for theatre. He had hoped to try the series for one year, but its producers wanted him for six. A solo show allowed him to return to the stage without depending on other performers’ schedules.
Stewart performed A Christmas Carol repeatedly, including in the United States in 1994 and 2001, and for charity in 2019. He also played Scrooge in TNT’s 1999 television adaptation, which featured a full cast. The film received generally positive reviews, with Variety praising his performance.
