Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.

As a young child, Frederic had been apprenticed to a pirate by mistake when he should have been apprenticed to a pilot. Now, having reached his 21st year, Frederic's indentures are at last over and he happily leaves the service of the pirates. When Frederic meets the beautiful Mabel, one of the many daughters (or wards in Chancery) of Major-General Stanley, they fall in love and decide to marry. However, complications arise when the pirates decide to marry the rest of the Major-General's daughters, themselves - and Frederic's birthdate turns out to be not all it seems.

A young European boy living in San Francisco is reluctant to marry his long-term girlfriend because he wants to travel around the world first. His wealthy uncle agrees to send him on a global expedition aboard his ship, but en route the boy and his travelling companion are shipwrecked on a remote island, populated by countless prehistoric creatures as well as gold-hunting bandits.

Glimpses of Chaucer penning his famous work are sprinkled through this re-enactment of several of his stories.

In a staid English seaside town after the Second World War, young Lynda grows up with her widowed father and younger sister. Rebellious Lynda has been swearing constantly from an early age. At sixteen, she becomes more exhibitionist and seeks out sexual encounters challenging the prevailing lower-middle class attitudes to sex.

100 years in the future: Tom is both bored and worried in the humdrum, violent times. Also he is unable to remember what his job is and thus decides to leave. But everyone keeps telling him that is impossible ...

An old mattress is thrown away but plays an unlikely part in the lives of those people who come across it.

In the days leading up the Queen's Silver Jubilee, Pauline, a recently separated single mother, receives a visit from a bailiff and is given 15 days to address her overdue rent payments. Meanwhile, the local council is under pressure to cut expenditure, and their decisions result in Pauline's mentally handicapped daughter Paula being transferred from a care home for special needs children to an old people's home, where she is all alone.

A male nurse in a mental hospital witnesses one patient killing another, but struggles with his loyalties and his conscience to come forward.

Daniel is an obeying and high-flying barrister with the good life on his side. Nathaniel Quass is a rich and bizarre recluse, generous, obsessed and sad. This reluctant pair are caught up in an alliance againstu an ingenious conspiracy which threatens both of their lives.