A Christmas Carol (TV series)

A Christmas Carol is a 2019 British Dark Fantasy miniseries. It began live with BBC One in the U.K. on 22 December, 2019 and the final episode finished 24 December, 2019. It is based on the 1843 story A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

Dialouge

[The film begins in London 1843, in the midst of a cold blizzard, in a graveyard next to Jacob Marley's Tombstone]

Young Child: [Proceeds to urinate on Marley's grave] You skinflint old bastard.

Jacob Marley: Oh, can they not read! The inscription clearly states rest in peace!

Jacon Marley: Why am I not allowed any peace?

---

Preacher: Mr. Cratchit, will you come tommorow?

Bob Cratchit: I am afraid I can't tommorow. Work.

Bob Cratchit: No, I did not forget about you, Old Tim. I saw he was offering an extra prayer and I let him be.

Tiny Tim: For our poor cat that died. Rest in Peace.

Bob Cratchit: Rest in Peace. He is chasing mice around St. Peter's feet.

Preacher: Come on Cratchit, It will be a fine do tommorow... children in charge, blind man's bluff and all that.

Preacher: Bring the whole tribe.

Bob Cratchit: I'm Sorry, I'm afraid...

Mary Cratchit: I'm afraid my husband works for a man with an ice pick for a heart.

Preacher: Ah, of course, you toil for Old Scratch, do you not? Huh... my condolences.

Preacher: Oh, well. So be it. Merry Christmas.

Bob Cratchit: Belinda, come on, you will get wet and catch your death.

---

[Meanwhile, a Day Later, Christmas Eve at Early Dawn, the scene turns to Scrooge within the city]

Ebenezer Scrooge: [Stares out of the Ice-covered window]

Ebenezer Scrooge: [Referring to Bob Cratchit] Late.

Ebenezer Scrooge: One. Two. Three. Four. Beyond resonable.

Ebenezer Scrooge: The Smudge is from the fourth lump, I have no doubt.

Ebenezer Scrooge: The Smudge is from Kindness.

[Bob Cratchit rushes to work whilst carrying supplies]]

Bob Cratchit: Good Morning Mr. Scrooge...

Ebenezer Scrooge: [Ignores Cratchit]

Bob Cratchit: [Notices four lumps of coal at the fireplace] A Merry Christmas to you Mr. Scrooge.

Ebenezer Scrooge: I left an important document to be copied three times before days end... One for London, One for Birmingham, One for Manchester.

Bob Cratchit: Three, not four, sir?

Ebenezer Scrooge: What?

Bob Cratchit: There appears to be a day for four, not three.

Ebenezer Scrooge: Ah, you mean the extra lump of coal I gave you? Well, curse the fourth, curse gestures.

Ebenezer Scrooge: Just make three copies of the letter and should there be no blots, no smudges, no stains, you may go home... at four.

Bob Cratchit: Mr. Scrooge? I thought we agreed today on the account of the day it is I could go home at three.

Ebenezer Scrooge: I give you an extra lump of coal, then straightaway you try to snip an extra hour off the day, three becomes four, four becomes three... I don't care for your revolutionary mathematics. This is not Paris.

Bob Cratchit: It's Frozen sir...

Ebenezer Scrooge: What is?

Bob Cratchit: My Ink.

Ebenezer Scrooge: No, that will waste time, you can use mine.

Bob Cratchit: Ah, lovely. A sort of Christmas present, is it, sir?

Ebenezer Scrooge: Oh, please. If it were a Christmas present I would have wrapped it in ribbons and bows to artificially increase your anticipation, and you would gasp and say: Oh, my lord, a bottle of Ink, that is exactly what I have always wanted.

Ebenezer Scrooge: And I would shrug and smile and tell you that of al the ink bottles in all the world, this is the one ink bottle, I wanted you to have on this most and sacred of days.

[Ebenezer proceeds to stare out of the ice-covered window with an unpleasant glare at others outside]

Ebenezer Scrooge: Behold... One day of the year... they all grin and greet each other when every other day they walk by with their faces in their collars, You know, it makes me very sad to see all the lies that come as surely as the Snow at this time of year.

Bob Cratchit: [Stares at Scrooge in an uncomfortable way]

Ebenezer Scrooge: How many Merry Christmas' are meant and how many are lies? To pretend on one day of the year that the human beast is not the human beast, that is is possible we can all be transformed.. but if it were so, if it were possible for so many mortals to look at the calendar and transform from wolf to lamb, then why not every day? Instead of one day good, and the rest bad, why not have everyone grinning at each other all year, and have one day in the year when we are all beasts and we pass each other by? Why not turn it around?

Bob Cratchit: Yes, sir. Yes, you could call that day of the beastliness Scrooge day.

Ebenezer Scrooge: Yes, why not? It would be the one day where everyone is free to tell all those around them exactly what they really think of them.

Bob Cratchit: Well, I think every clerk in England would report for work on that day, sir.

Ebenezer Scrooge: In order that they could tell their employer the awful truth of what is in their hearts.

Bob Cratchit: Yes.

Ebenezer Scrooge: Ah, the truth without, ribbons and bows... what do you say?

Bob Cratchit: In all my ten years of working here you have never bothered to explain your philosophy before. I am quite flattered, sir, that today of all days you should share the machinery of your great logic with a mere clerk.

Ebenezer Scrooge: It is not logic, Cratchit.

Bob Cratchit: Well, then, sir, what is it?

Ebenezer Scrooge: Mind out for the word litigation, you have a habit of spelling it wrongly.

Bob Cratchit: I spelt it wrongly once.... five years ago..

---

Coachman: Any old iron ang rag! Rag bone! Any old iron and rag!

Ebenezer Scrooge: Every third day...

Coachman: Rag bone!

Ebenezer Scrooge: Punctual at ten minutes past Seven, for the past 199 days, with a seven-day hiatus July fourth to eleventh, when, no doubt, he and his were in margate or somewhere atrocious.

Coachman: Any old iron and rag! Any old iron and rag!

Ebenezer Scrooge: Two... oh, no ink.

Ebenezer Scrooge: Three calls, 15 steps of the horse, five turns of the wheel... I need a pencil. What?! A new voice, four calls twenty-one steps of the hoof, nine turns of the wheels. Oh, Damn it. Five calls, twenty-seven steps of the horse, eleven turns of the wheel... five, and.... twenty-seven... both of you please pass by!

Ebenezer Scrooge: How am I supposed to work with all this fucking noise!

Bob Cratchit: Rag and Bone man's passing. He wants to know if we have any rags or bones or iron.

Ebenezer Scrooge: None. He is just begging a Christmas Box.

Bob Cratchit: Sir, are you all right? You don't seem yourself today.

Ebenezer Scrooge: Well, I am myself, always! Please, get on with your work.

Ebenezer Scrooge: [Talking to himself thinking about Marley] Last night... I had a dream of chains and furnaces and... and I realized, when I am alone and I talk out loud... it is still you I am talking to, as if you are not completely gone, but I was at your burial, and I am rational, I placed the coins on your eyes. I... saw your coffin lowered, so i have no explanation why I speak out loud to you.

Stranger: Any old iron and rag! Miserable Bastard.

Ebenezer Scrooge: [Sighs] Six rag and bone. Ah, jacob, Imagine atleast where you are it is quiet.

---

Jacob Marley: Oh, fate. Oh, spirits of life and death, Whoever is in charge of this ill-begotten universe, I'm begging you to free me from this consciousness, Let me Rest. Give me darkness. I know my sins were many, but I have repented, and repented and repented. Tell me what I must do to make amends... and I will do it. Please.

[All of a sudden, a large, rining bell grows louder from underneath Marley's grave underground, until he falls through the Earth]

Jacob Marley: Oh, Lord. Please tell me this is not hell.

Purgatory Worker: Not quite pilgrim.

Jacob Marley: I have money, two pennis, they are yours, please, let me go.

Purgatory Worker: Aye. You do.

Purgatory Worker: I died like a horse of exhaustion in one of your workshops, so many died at your penny-pinching hands and each one I have forged into a link in the chain, the chain you must now wear, Mr. Marley.

Jacob Marley: I have been dead a year. Why now?

Purgatory Worker: You rang the bell. You offered penance. And since your call was answered... I wager the spirits have a little job for you.

[Jacob Marley is dragged on the Snow-covered icy ground by horses and is tossed off on the side of a road near a pile of trees, Marley views his chains in despair and wanders around the ambient forest dragging his chains along with him on his way to Scrooge]

---

Bob Cratchit: Done, Mr. Scrooge.

Bob Cratchit: You already proofed the first two, sir.

Ebenezer Scrooge: Just checking again, Cratchit, the light grows dim.

Ebenezer Scrooge: I sense you are angry with me.

Bob Cratchit: Why do you say that?

Ebenezer Scrooge: Because everything on this page is perfect, precise, immaculate, you might say.

Ebenezer Scrooge: You got it all right to spite me, to... show me.

Bob Cratchit: No sir, No, to, to afford you the possibility that, that since all the work is done correctly and early I might leave early and spend the rest of the day with my family.

Ebenezer Scrooge: Your anger made you work quickly but perfectly. You did not stop to think that qorking quickly and perfectly also suits me, the object of your hatred down to the ground.

Bob Cratchit: I do not hate you, sir. I am not accustomed to talking about these matters with you: I ask you again, is everything all right with you?

Ebenezer Scrooge: Christmas, it seems, inspires such emotion: Good, and, evidently, bad, I feel your eyes burning into me... Imagine you were a violent man, Imagine your pen were a dagger, Imagine I were found dead Christmas dawn, the murder could be laid too at the door of the spirit of Christmas.. yes?

Bob Cratchit: Mr. Scrooge...

Bob Cratchit: Mr. Scrooge, it is now eight minutes past three, my work is complete. If we are back to logic, then logic suggests that my idle sitting in there for no reason, that is the anomaly.

Ebenezer Scrooge: [Pointing to Cratchit's work desk] A Letter of complaint to the Lord mayor regarding those persistent noise caused by costermongers, Gypsies, street musicians, rag and bone men, various other gutter runners.

Ebenezer Scrooge: It is not I in curious mood today, Cratchit, it is you.

Bob Cratchit: No, I am not careless of my situation, sir. I know the narrowness of my situation, and so do you.

Ebenezer Scrooge: [Ignores Cratchit] Two copies of that letter should take you nicely up to four.