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The video of the Banking Christmas Carol can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tZ8PxVxu10.



For the script of the performance in English, French, German and Spanish as pdf, see related files.

Banging noise off.



Enter Scrooge carrying candle.



SCROOGE: Who’s there?



More banging.



SCROOGE: (looking directly at audience): Who are you?



Enter Marley from opposite side of stage carrying the Account Book.



MARLEY: Do you not recognize us, Ebenezer? Yes, of course, you always have struggled with trade union recognition. We represent the people who put you where you are today. You profited from our memvers' labour. You exploited our members' talents to get rich. Then you thought you didn’t need us any more. But in fact, Scrooge, you need us now more than ever.



SCROOGE: That’s nonsense! Any way, what are you doing here?



MARLEY (opening the book): I’ve brought your Account Book, Ebenezer, so that we can check your balance. It’s the ledger of your life – a life of achievement a life of acquisition, a life of avarice – and for what? All that ambition has brought you here alone and unloved. You were one of the masters of the universe. But now you are despised and ridiculed. A miserable old miser and an empty shell!



SCROOGE: But I don’t need anyone: I am happy by myself with my share options and my fabulous pension.



MARLEY: No. you're just a pathetic old man. But you were happy once, Ebenezer. Once banking was an honourable profession (Enter Ghost of Banking Past checking his watch and reading newspaper). Well respected. Bankers were the pillars of the community. Sensible. Prudent. OK maybe a little boring. But solid and dependable. Trustworthy. Bankers knew their customers – and their customers knew them. Bankers were financial advisers - not grubby salesmen trying to foist lots of useless financial garbage onto their customers.



SCROOGE (nostalgic): Yes, we were respectable, weren’t we! Where did it all go wrong?



MARLEY: You know where it all went wrong, Scrooge. You got greedy. First there was the dodgy accounting. You thought you could take some of your liabilities off the balance sheet to enhance profits and boost your bonuses. You lost the plot, Ebenezer.



(Enter Ghost of Banking Present. He alternates smoking cigar and speaking on mobile phone and listening – “Buy Sell Sell Buy, etc. At one point he puts cigar to ear and mobile phone in mouth).



Just making profits was no longer enough for you: you had to make super-profits. You started to take riskier and riskier decisions like offering loans to people who couldn’t afford to repay them - because you could charge them higher interest rates. It was only when they started to default you realised that 20% of nothing is nothing. You repossessed there homes but property prices had collapsed. So these assets were worthless. The bubble burst, Ebenezer. You wrecked the bank, you wrecked the economy, you wrecked the world. Perfectly decent businesses came crashing down thanks to your reckless behaviour. Workers all around the world are suffering the consequences of your greed.



SCROOGE: But it wasn’t just me. Everyone was doing it.



MARLEY: No. Scrooge. Not everyone – but too many, it’s true. And if you don’t learn the lesson now. It’s going to happen again and again.



If you don’t change your ways, banks will keep on failing. But the State won’t keep on bailing. Even the friendliest government can’t ignore public opinion forever. Too big to fail could easily become too big to bail.



Remember Lehmann’s. You could be next, Ebenezer.

(Enter the Ghost of Banking Future. She holds out begging bowl to Scrooge and says: Please sir, can I have some more!).



SCROOGE: What the Dickens! There’s a Twist!



MARLEY: This is what the future could hold for you, if you don't change now. The sector will be plagued by scandal after scandal – and the public will become ever more impatient with you. You could be sharing a cell with Bernie Madoff.



SCROOGE: Madoff made off with millions!



MARLEY: But he‘ll die in prison. That’s where you’re heading too, Ebenezer.

It’s time to get back to basics. We need prudent banking that respects customers and values communities.

A banking system that is service driven not target driven.

A banking system that serves economic and social development and does not try to be its master.

A banking system that works for all of its stake-holders.



SCROOGE: OK. How can we make things right?



MARLEY: Well, you can start by talking to these people: they want to make it work. But first you've got to recognize them. So turn up the lights and take a good look - because they are here for the long term.