It was Christmas 2008. To create a little bit of seasonal magic, five former school friends had got together to put on a musical production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They had studied drama together in the sixth form of St Clement Danes School in Chorleywood and were putting on the show in the Chorleywood Memorial Hall to revive the tradition of a Christmas show taking place there, which had died out when pantomimes stopped being performed there in the 1990s.

Little did they know that a bit of Christmas magic was waiting for them, as well.

Joshua Sills, Stephen Leask, brother and sister Patrick and Jessica Rufey, and Tom Barton so enjoyed the experience that they decided to form their own theatre company, Talkwood Productions, and produced Alice in Wonderland the following year and then A Christmas Carol in 2010.

In the audience at A Christmas Carol was Chorleywood-based entrepreneur Steve Godbold, who thought the show was so good it deserved a wider audience and teamed up with producers Josh and Tom to fund the company’s first UK tour in 2012-13. That tour was a huge success with both audiences and the press – with the Watford Observer calling it ‘A real sizzler of a show’ and ‘A five-star production’.

Emboldened by this reception and the interest it generated at theatres around the country, Steve joined Talkwood as executive producer. Now A Christmas Carol is touring again, newly-cast with West End performers to thousand-seater-plus national venues, and culminating in a three-week run at London’s Charing Cross Theatre over Christmas and the New Year and a special Christmas Eve production at the Watford Colosseum.

The five schoolmates have come a long way since performing to mostly friends and family in Chorleywood Memorial Hall five years ago.

“It’s going really well,“ says Rickmansworth resident Josh, 27, writer, producer and director of A Christmas Carol and the company’s artistic director.

“We’ve been getting some really great feedback from audiences, it’s been great to see. It’s definitely getting everyone, including us, in the Christmas spirit!“

How is it, playing such large venues as the Colosseum, which can seat more than 1,300?

“It’s been really great but it was particularly nerve-wracking,“ laughs Josh. “We wondered whether it would work outside of a memorial hall and with people who weren’t friends or family!“

But work it most definitely has and there is already talk of a full West End run happening next year.

“We’re interested in musical adaptations of classic stories,“ says Josh, “so we’re looking at things like The Count of Monte Cristo. We’ve got a few things in the pipeline and we’ve going to look at developing them early next year and will hopefully have put something together for the summer.“

Talkwood has made a few tweaks to their original 2010 adaptation of A Christmas Carol, including building up the relationship between the younger Scrooge and his love Belle and creating a bigger scene for the orphan twins Want and Ignorance, who represent the plight of London’s poor children – an addition that gained the approval of the great-great-great granddaughter of Charles Dickens, Lucinder Dickens Hawksley, who Josh met during a Q&A session she was giving in October last year.

“She gave us such a fantastic insight,“ he says. “One of the things she said to us was ‘Have you got Want and Ignorance in?’ and we had and she was really pleased because a lot of adaptations leave them out but she said it was one of the most important morals of the story for Dickens.“

But to get back to Christmas Present, Josh and the team can’t wait to bring the show home, to the Colosseum on Christmas Eve.

“We were really keen to play there as it’s our local venue, so to get that date is really special.“