Neil Hanson returns with his 'A Dickens of a Christmas' talk, which explores how Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol revived and reinvented the Christmas traditions and celebrations that we now take for granted.

Along the way Neil reveals the real-life miser who inspired the character of Ebenezer Scrooge, how some of the events of Dickens’ own life were reflected in the story, why he saw fainting women as a sign of success, and the tricks of the trade he used to bring his characters to such vivid life that the names of some have entered the language, above all Scrooge, which remains shorthand for a skinflint to this day.