Jim Broadbent: I want City bankers to learn from my Scrooge

Jim Broadbent has called on City bankers watching his return to the stage in A Christmas Carol to learn a valuable lesson from Ebenezer Scrooge.

The Oscar-winning star, 66, plays the miserly money-lender who finds redemption in Patrick Barlow’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’s tale.

Broadbent said it was “self-evident” that the message of the story, published in 1843, was as relevant as ever.

He added: “We’re entangled, really, in a world where finance has taken over. And Scrooge was right at the beginning of that. But now it’s got to ridiculous proportions.

“I’ve been moved by it, being in the play. I hope that it can teach people to be more generous to our human kind, to our fellow family of the world — it’s a small example of someone trying to say, ‘Let’s be kinder to each other’.

“I should think there will be lots of people from the City coming to see the play, as people from the City love coming to the West End for shows.

“Maybe one or two will say, ‘Oh, I’ll have a rethink about aspects of my life’. You hope that some of that comes out and has some effect somewhere.” Broadbent, who won an Oscar in 2002 for Iris, last appeared on the West End stage 10 years ago.

Since then much of his time has been taken up with a string of films including two Harry Potters, The Iron Lady, Cloud Atlas and Paddington.

But he said the opportunity to work again with his long-time collaborator Barlow was “irresistible”, adding: “Patrick and I are such close friends and we understand each other so well in terms of what we can do. I understand his writing and just loved it.

“His writing is always hysterically funny and passionate at the same time. This is the ideal story for him, with the humour and the passion. He’s so great at writing — turning on a sixpence, going from serious to something slapstick and absolutely stupid, while being profoundly moving at the same time.”

A Christmas Carol is at the Noël Coward Theatre until January 30. (0844 482 5140, achristmascaroltheplay.com)