LITTLE BY LITTLE

This is Tiny Tim as he will appear in my dramatisation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol which Flat Pack Productions are presenting at the Greenwich Playhouse over Christmas and New Year.

Along with Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim is one of Dickens' immortals, but few people realise that the name that is known to millions of people the world over (even if they've never read Dickens' book) was not the author's first choice.

In the original manuscript, Dickens had initially referred to Bob Cratchit's son as Little Fred; it was only when he decided to name Scrooge's nephew 'Fred' that he had to come up with a new name for the child to whom he had given one of his most famous lines: "God bless us, every one!"

And that's how, when and why Little Fred became Tiny Tim.

Will Tosh as Bob Cratchit with Tiny Tim