MALTON will be stepping back in time over the next two weekend’s for the town’s annual Dickensian Festival.

Events begin on Friday, with the Big Sing as local school children perform their favourite Christmas carols at the Milton Rooms at 1pm.

Malton town centre will come alive with Dickensian spirit on Saturday, with Victorian street theatre from Hardcastle’s Mighty Excelsior Theatre Company at the Malton Food Lovers Christmas market.

Horse and carriage rides will also be available on the day and there will be a special performance of A Christmas Carol in the Counting House Museum at 2pm and 3pm.

On Sunday, there will be A Christmas Carol Lunchtime Gala, from 1pm, at the Milton Rooms, with two contrasting versions of A Christmas Carol.

The following weekend Miriam Margolyes will join Charles Dickens’ great, great, great granddaughter Lucinda Hawksley in a question and answer session after a screening of the new film The Man Who Invented Christmas on Saturday, December 16, at 4.40pm, at The Palace Cinema in Malton.

The festival concludes on Sunday, December 17, as Miriam and Lucinda explore what it would have been like to take part in a real Dickensian Christmas, with a book signing afterwards at the Talbot Hotel in Malton.

Miriam said: “Malton should be rightly proud of its rich association with Dickens and this magical book, and I’m honoured to be celebrating the town’s literary legacy once more. It’s going to be enormous fun.”

For more information about the festival, go to maltondickensianfestival.com