In the run-up to Christmas there must have been more than 100 different stage productions of “A Christmas Carol”, professional and amateur, up and down the country.
And, of course, various cinematic versions turned up on our TV screens during the festive season, including the definitive 1951 version starring Alistair Sim as Scrooge.
For reasons unknown, one 2025 professional stage production took it into their heads to pre-warn potential ticket buyers that the show contained ‘Themes Of Death’.
You don’t say!
There can’t be many potential audience members for a show based on Charles Dickens’ novella who aren’t aware that the ghost of Jacob Marley warns Scrooge that he’ll be visited by three more ghosts on Christmas Eve and that the main qualification to call yourself a ghost is that you need to have ceased breathing.
Are we so sensitive we need to be warned about this?
Apparently so.
Here’s an example of how some people are unable to tolerate even the mildest of dramatic confrontations.
Television was so dire during the Christmas period I spent a lot of time switching channels and at one point caught a minute of a panel show discussing Christmas films.
When “It’s A Wonderful Life” was mentioned, a young lady panellist pulled a face, shook her head and said, “It hasn’t dated well. I watched it for the first time last year and there’s a scene where a man is unpleasant to his wife.”
I was stunned by this. Has she never watched a soap episode?
I assume the delicate flower was referring to the scene in which small town banker Geoge Bailey (James Stewart), facing financial ruin, obviously on the verge of hysteria and totally out of character, snaps at his wife Mary (Donna Reed) before running out of the house into the snow.
George’s suicide attempt is thwarted by his guardian angel Clarence, who shows him what the town would have been like if George hadn’t been born.
This is an emotional, pivotal section of the film,  which eventually has a happy ending.  Not dated well? It’s not dated at all.