A film adaptation of the play, with Stewart reprising his role, aired on TNT in 1999, directed by David Jones and co-starring Richard E. Grant.

It wasn't until during the production of the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation two years later that Stewart began to work on re-developing it into a shorter but still full-length solo performance.

[3][4] He took his work to Professor Albert Hutter, a Dickens scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles, for reassurance that he hadn't made any mistakes in his adaptation.

[5] This also led to Stewart and A Christmas Carol being featured on the front cover of Starlog, typically a science fiction magazine, due to the actor's links to The Next Generation.

[11] Nancy Churnin reviewed the play for the Los Angeles Times in 1993, saying that Stewart was "able to fill the stage all the more richly with his own penetrating and versatile voice, his mastery of gesture, and facial expressions that instantly summon fear, delight, longing, and awe.

"[7] He added that the actor's performance prevented Ebenezer Scrooge from being seen as a "caricature" but instead as an "Everyman whose sins are present in most of us to varying degrees.

"[7] Critics reviewing the 2005 run in London at the Albery Theater included Maxie Szalwinska for the Metro, who said that the play was "a reminder that you don't need angel-voiced choirs, a cute Tiny Tim hobbling around on crutches or lashings of fake snow and tinsel to make a satisfying Christmas show.

[12] Lyn Gardner, while writing for The Guardian, praised the usage of the original text and said that Stewart's means of saying the classic "Bah humbug" line was "sheer brilliance".