Charles Dickins' play A Christmas Carol in Hull and Scarborough

Funny month, December. A month when certain phrases reserved for use only at this time of year are given an annual airing and when hitherto unspoken sentences are given life.

“Mince pie for breakfast, why not?” “Is there any more of that brandy butter?”

And one I have never previously uttered before this December: “Sure I’ll watch that Christmas Carol-inspired Matthew McConaughey movie.”

No, I didn’t see that one coming either. The movie is Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and it is every bit the movie you imagine with a title like that and a star like McConaughey (I’m being deliberately snarky, I actually liked McConaughey long before his Dallas Buyers Club and Wolf of Wall Street 2013 renaissance).

The thing is, despite the slightly awkward set-up in GOGP of McConaughey playing our hero as a womanising misogynist (in a post-Weinstein world it looks even worse), the movie stands up to scrutiny. The reason? The structure is pyramid-solid. And the reason for the solidity of the structure is that it is borrowed from one of the most perfectly told stories in the canon of English Literature: Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

There is a reason this story is told over and over with characters from Muppets to anthropomorphised cartoons and situations from Bill Murray’s overworked television executive to the land of the Smurfs.

The flawlessly structured story is being brought to life once again this festive season at two of the region’s theatres.

At Hull Truck the prolific Deborah McAndrew supplies the script directed by West Yorkshire Playhouse associate Amy Leach and at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre the brilliant Nick Lane is on script duty while the theatre’s artistic director Paul Robinson is at the helm.Both versions demonstrate quite beautifully that this story works whatever you do with it, be it stay faithful to Dickens’s vision or have your own fun with it.

In Hull the story has drawn inspiration from the Victorian workhouses that can still be found around the city and McAndrew has taken the character of Scrooge, turning him into the owner of one of these buildings which sits on the dockside. In Hull, that means the addition of sea shanties into the action and a local resonance for the audiences.

Director Amy Leach says of A Christmas Carol: “It’s the perfect mixture of funny, magical and spooky. A perfect Christmas show has to appeal to lots of different ages and combine lots of different ingredients: humour, pathos, silliness and a big dollop of magic.”

Scarborough shares with Hull proximity to the sea, but in its treatment of the Dickens story for this Christmas, it couldn’t be more different. Writer Nick Lane has taken serious liberties with the tale, but firmly believes Dickens and Scrooge can stand up to the challenge. “It’s a transcendent story, I think. You look at it one way and it’s incredibly simple – nasty old bloke learns what it is to be human,” he says, perhaps underplaying the layers within the story – but also firmly nailing on the head the simplicity of this perfect structure audiences have been enjoying since 1843.

As to how the story works for his audience in Scarborough and that of McAndrew’s a little way down the coast, Lane has an answer. “We love redemption in a story; someone rediscovering their love of life, of family and I don’t think there are geographical parameters on something so pure. I mean, we’ve set ours in Scarborough, I believe Debbie’s is set in Hull... I’m sure there are mean people in both places. Crucially though, there’s also love in both places, and it’s easy to forget the play has as much to do with that as anything else.”

Lane has also made a fairly fundamental change to the story – or not, as audiences will see when they experience his take: his Scrooge is a woman. “As for character changes... female Scrooges or Marleys, slightly different ghosts – for me, as long as the emotion connected to the scene plays through, you can alter it in all manner of ways. The story will take it,” he says. “Look at The Muppet Christmas Carol – delightfully silly, and yet at the end still moving. We’ve added all manner of childlike lunacy to our version – there’s a woman with a nut for a head and a time worm, to name but two examples – and yet I suspect at the end the audience are still left with that lovely warm feeling.” And it is that warm feeling that has audiences returning year on year to watch the story and creatives to retell it.

Paul Robinson, Stephen Joseph Theatre’s artistic director, says: “I think that Christmas is clearly a very different thing to what it was when Dickens wrote the story, but this time of year does afford us some time off and the chance to be reflective. Perhaps we think about those special people in our lives and maybe review the year we have had and whether we have made a positive contribution.”

Leach adds: “It’s such an honour to make work at Christmas as it’s often the one time of year when whole families make a trip to the theatre – different generations all sharing stories together.”

When they do come together the fortunate thing is that both Hull and Scarborough will tell a story that has endured for over a century – perhaps because it is one of the most perfect stories ever told.

As Nick Lane says: “That Dickens; clever, wasn’t he?”

A Christmas Carol, published in 1843, is one of the most loved and most adapted stories in English literature.

In 1951 Alastair Sim famously played Scrooge in what is still considered the definitive performance. In 1992 The Muppet Christmas Carol was released, with Michael Caine in the lead role. While it might have been considered a gimmick at the time, Caine’s performance, mixed with comedy and appealing songs have helped it stand the test of time. Since 1988 Patrick Stewart has occasionally performed his extraordinary one-man version in London and in New York.

Hull Truck Theatre to January 6, tickets 01482 323638. Stephen Joseph Theatre, to December 31, tickets 01723 370541.