Interview with Jonny Donahoe

What happens when one of literature’s most famous Christmas stories meets the realities of modern Britain? In A Christmas Carol Continues, Charles Dickens’ iconic tale gets an unexpected sequel, bringing Ebenezer Scrooge face to face with the continuing inequalities of the modern world. With housing insecurity, renters’ rights, poverty and the growing divide between wealth and ordinary people at its heart, this production combines sharp comedy with an unapologetic social conscience. Returning to Oxford’s Old Fire Station, a venue with a special place in the writer’s own theatrical history, the show asks whether Scrooge has really learned his lesson and, more importantly, whether society has learned anything at all. I caught up with Jonny Donahoe to discuss reimagining Dickens for a contemporary audience, the influence of Karl Marx, and why sometimes making people laugh is the best way to get them thinking.

You’ve described the piece as imagining what might have happened if Charles Dickens had met Karl Marx. What does that conversation look like in your head, and who wins the argument?

I mant more that it would be fascinating had Dickens lived longer and seen what was coming next for people’s rights?. Dickens was a great social critic and passionate about changing things like child exploitation and industrial oppression. But he was an educated Victorian man of his time: his views never quite stretch towards putting power into people’s hands. What would have happened if he’d lived long enough to read and study those ideas? It’s fascinating to imagine!

Housing and renters’ rights are at the heart of this sequel. How did the current housing crisis in Oxford and beyond shape the writing?

Oxford remains one of the least affordable places to live in the whole UK. I grew up near here (Reading) and spent a lot of my younger days studying, living and working in Oxford. If it was hard to balance the books in 2006, the last 20 years have made it damned near imposible. We still exist in a time where it’s so hard for people just to survive, and that made me wonder about why A Christmas Carol remains so popular. We love Dicken’s story because it seems so moral and there’s a happy ending for the poor. But if you interrogate it further, not enough really changes at the end of the story to justify the warm, fuzzy feeling it’s meant to give you. So I wanted to take this absolute classic and take it even further.

Is Scrooge actually the villain this time around, or is the more uncomfortable idea that he might genuinely believe he’s doing the right thing?

Scrooge believes he is doing business The Right Way. The side effects of his practices are just par for the course, as far as he’s concerned. We want to convince him that there’s more to society than what is best for business. People matter a great deal more. And that message is something we’d like to use to convince all the new “misers” of the twenty-first century - the billionaire class.

What can comedy do when dealing with subjects such as homelessness, poverty, rent and financial hardship that a much more serious drama perhaps can’t?

When it comes to hard societal topics, comedy can offer utopic solutions that would seem absurd in a serious drama. And imagining a better world is a big step towards building one. Too many social commentaries dwell on just the tragedy and misery of the current circumstances - let’s create something bigger and better, to inspire us all.

The Old Fire Station shares its building with Crisis. How important was that relationship to the way you approached the themes of the play?

I’ve worked with OFS and Crisis a lot over the last ten to fifteen years, from touring shows there, running workshops with Crisis members, and - of course - writing their annual Christmas show in 2016 and again this year. The building combines these two amazing organisations and generates a kind of beautiful synthesis that constantly makes the real the idea that art and community are so interlinked and need one another to survive and thrive.

You first came to the Old Fire Station at just 17 with Working Title, directed by Mike Bartlett. What does it feel like returning all these years later with a play of your own?

That was so long ago, and I’m now very old. Well, I’m 43, so 17 really feels like a lifetime ago. I’m like Ebenezer coming back to the scene of the ghosts! OFS was a totally different place back then, but it’s always been an important theatre to me and I love it with all my heart. And I know the same is true for Mike - who wrote the OFS Christmas shows in 2018 and 2021.

You co-created and starred in Every Brilliant Thing, which balances huge emotional subjects with comedy. Do you see a similar creative challenge in making audiences laugh one minute and then quietly confronting them with something rather uncomfortable the next?

I genuinely think comedy is funnier when it’s about something real, and drama is more affecting and impactful if it can make you laugh. The two go hand-in-hand in real life, so the same should be true on the stage.

What was the biggest challenge in writing a sequel to one of the most famous Christmas stories ever written?

The biggest challenge was keeping the story surprising and familiar at the same time. Telling a different story with the same tropes was harder than I first imagined.

Ghosts are obviously a major part of the original story. Without giving away too much, what does haunting Scrooge look like this time around?

The haunting will seem familiar to Scrooge, and to those who know the story, but there is one element of it that is radically different…

How do you make a story that is rooted in Victorian literature feel genuinely relevant to an audience sitting in Oxford in 2026?

The industrial era has in some ways never ended. The power structures first created by industrial capital, and the economics of global colonialism are very similar today to how they were in 1850. Just like Scrooge’s transformation in A Christmas Carol, there have been some improvements, but no structural change.

You’ve worked across comedy, theatre and live performance. When you’re writing something like this, do you hear the jokes first, see the theatrical possibilities first, or start with the uncomfortable question you want the audience to leave thinking about?

Story always comes first, and the jokes need to fit into the story, or else they’ll get put in the bin. A really good joke can make a scene, but only a story can make an act.

If Dickens were somehow sitting in the audience on opening night, what do you think he would make of A Christmas Carol Continues?

I hope Dickens would find it very funny and very interesting and thought-provoking. But he might just get distracted by seeing someone texting during the show, and spend the remainer of the evening asking them to show him what TikTok is.

And finally, after audiences have laughed, possibly felt a little uncomfortable, and hopefully looked at Scrooge, and perhaps themselves, slightly differently, what is the one question you hope they take home with them?

I want them to think about the way they live their lives, and what it tells the next generation about how they should live theirs.

A huge thank you to Jonny for taking the time to discuss the inspiration, ideas and creative thinking behind A Christmas Carol Continues. It has been fascinating to explore how this sequel takes Dickens’ much-loved classic and uses it to question the inequalities that remain deeply embedded in modern society. From housing insecurity and renters’ rights to the relationship between comedy and social commentary, this conversation has offered plenty of food for thought. I particularly love the idea of revisiting Scrooge not simply to tell another Christmas story, but to ask whether the world around him has genuinely changed. I wish the entire team every success with the production at the Old Fire Station in Oxford. A Christmas Carol Continues plays from Wednesday 9th to Tuesday 29th December. For tickets and further information, visit https://oldfirestation.org.uk/whats-on/a-christmas-carol-continues/