List of A Christmas Carol Adaptations - Adaptations - Recordings

Recordings

• In 1941, Ronald Colman portrayed Scrooge in a famous American Decca four-record 78-RPM album of "A Christmas Carol" with a full supporting cast of radio actors and a score by Victor Young. This version proved extremely popular and was eventually transferred to LP, where it sold well into the 1960s. In 2005, it appeared on a Deutsche Grammophon compact disc, along with its companion piece on LP, Mr. Pickwick's Christmas, narrated by Charles Laughton. (The Pickwick recording had originally been made in 1944.) The Ronald Colman "A Christmas Carol" is slightly abbreviated on both the LP and the CD versions. On the LP, this was done to fit the entire production onto one side of a 12-inch 33 RPM record. With the greater time available it was hoped that the CD would have the complete recording, but Deutsche Grammophon used the shorter LP version.

• In 1960, Dan O'Herlihy recorded the complete Dickens novel on a set of 4 16-RPM LP's, one of the few instances that this speed was used for a professional recording. This version was one of the first audiobooks ever made, and is now available on CD. It was originally released on LP by a company called Audio Book Records, perhaps the first use of that term ever coined.

• Ralph Richardson and Paul Scofield were featured on a Caedmon Records adaptation of the story. While the Colman version took up only one side of an LP, the Caedmon Records version took up an entire one. It was released on CD in 2010.

• Patrick Stewart has recorded his one-man dramatic reading of the story.

• The actor Gerald Charles Dickens, the great-great grandson of Charles Dickens, has recorded a CD of A Christmas Carol which is unabridged and in which he plays twenty-six characters. His performance is based on Charles Dickens' original reading tour script.

• Actor Jim Dale, heard on the unabridged recordings for the U.S. release of the Harry Potter books (for which he won two Grammy awards), in 2003 released an unabridged reading of "A Christmas Carol" with full characterizations of all the roles as part of the Random House Listening Library series.

• Writer and broadcaster Steve Oliver recorded a four part audiobook adaptation, divided into four staves in 2012. They are available individually from Bandcamp on a free or pay what you like download.

• Former Doctor Who Tom Baker recorded an unabridged reading released in 2012 and currently available from the BBC's AudioGo Ltd..