Tommy Steele as Scrooge arrived at the New Theatre this week rather late for Christmas in some people’s opinion (though not mine) but in ideal time to celebrate the literary genius of the character’s creator at the start of his bicentennial year.

Charles Dickens, whose 1845 novella A Christmas Carol supplied the template for the show, was himself the first to exploit the dramatic potential of the tale in public readings that continued until the end of his life (indeed, helping to cause it). The well-drawn figures strutting — in four cases haunting — the stage are familiar to most of us from childhood. The villain-turned-goodie at its centre is so famous as to take his place in our dictionaries as a synonym for ‘miser’.

The dreadful Scrooge, as he is for most of Leslie Bricusse’s witty, tuneful, distinctly feelgood show, is played by Tommy Steele with the sure-footed skill you would expect from someone with more than 50 years in the business. Someone, moreover, who has now been playing the old rogue for eight years.

From a skinflint hoarder of every penny who bears a strong resemblance to Albert Steptoe, Scrooge is transformed through his ghost-led encounters with his past and with the future, into a beaming dispenser of bonhomie whose antics can’t fail to lift the spirits.

Aged 75, Steele still has a voice in very fine condition, as can be heard in show-stopping belters like A Better Life and I’ll Begin Again. Musical director Stuart Pedlar and his nine-strong band ensure aural delight on these and other songs, if at times the amplification is too in yer face, or rather ears.

The large, well-drilled, light- footed cast fill the stage with bustling action, presenting us with a credible slice of Victorian London life, assisted by designer Paul Farnsworth’s atmospheric creation of a fog-wreathed, soot-begrimed Cheapside.

A full range of top-notch performances include those of Edward Handoll as the downtrodden clerk Bob Cratchit, Barry Howard as chain-clanking ghost of Scrooge’s ex-partner Marley, James Bisk as the affable soup vendor Tom Jenkins, Rhidian Marc as Scrooge’s good sort nephew Fred, whose late mother, Scrooge’s sister, is revealed as the Ghost of Christmas Past (Sarah Earnshaw. Of course, Tiny Tim (Daniel McEwan) steals every heart.

One jarring note is struck near the end when Fred’s wife Helen (Leonie Heath) invites Scrooge to “Christmas lunch”. Lunch! This is a ghastly genteelism for Christmas (and indeed Sunday) dinner, dating from the 1970s, that would have appalled Dickens.

Until Saturday. Tickets: Telephone 0844 871 3020 (www.atgtickets.com.oxford).