During the 1990s, Sir Patrick Stewart wrote and starred in a one-man play based on A Christmas Carol, performing it in various places in the United States and the United Kingdom. He performed it again for the survivors and victim's families of 9/11, and again in 2005. In the play, he performed over forty different characters.
The dialogue between Scrooge and the undertaker on "what is particularly dead about a door nail", when having a drink with the priest immediately after Jacob Marley's burial, is taken directly from the opening lines of the book by Charles Dickens, which ends with "I am inclined to believe that a coffin nail is the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade."
This movie includes the scenes of the lighthouse, coal miners, and sailors on a ship at sea, in which the Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge different groups of people celebrating Christmas singing ''Silent Night'', in particular sections of the United Kingdom (especially Wales) after departing from Bob Cratchit's house. Almost every other movie adaptation omits them. The only previous production that used all three of these scenes was Un canto natalizio (1971).
The word "humbug" is misunderstood by many people, which is a pity since the word provides a key insight into Scrooge's hatred of Christmas. The word "humbug" describes deceitful efforts to fool people by pretending to a fake loftiness or false sincerity. So when Scrooge calls Christmas a humbug, he is claiming that people only pretend to charity and kindness in a scoundrel effort to delude him, each other, and themselves. In Scrooge's eyes, he is the one man honest enough to admit that no one really cares about anyone else, so for him, every wish for a Merry Christmas is one more deceitful effort to fool him and take advantage of him. This is a man who has turned to profit because he honestly believes everyone else will someday betray him or abandon him the moment he trusts them.