![]() ![]() I think the thing about Dickens that is so extraordinary, is that he continues to be a commentator of the world. The greatest actors of the day just said, thank God you’re not a professional actor, otherwise we would all be out of business! There’d be two or three thousand people at his events, and he’d be giving these astonishing performances. There is no other writer that I can think of who commanded the kind of audiences that Dickens did. I had really known nothing about them before then, and they were just such a phenomenon. Simon Callow: Well, I’d been quietly reading the novels all this time, but the thing that transformed my experience was when I was asked by the BBC to do An Audience with Charles Dickens, which reconstructed the public readings. So, that was the moment when you got inside his work, so to speak? Initially, I was playing Bob Cratchit, but then when the actor playing Scrooge fell ill, I took over that part. Then once I leaped forward a bit, I went into Rep and one of the pieces I did was A Christmas Carol. ![]() She produced a copy of 'Pickwick Papers' - and I never scratched again after that! I was just completely in love with this Britain that Dickens had put on the page, these extraordinary larger than life figures, the crooked lawyers, scheming landladies and so on. I was fretting, as you do with chicken pox. But then, I had chicken pox, and my dear old French grandmother came to look after me. I’d actually seen 'A Christmas Carol' when I was a little boy and it had scared the hell out of me. Simon Callow: I fell in love with his books at quite an early age. In this conversation, Sotheby's editor Arsalan Mohammad and Books Specialist Fenella Theis meet Mosse and Callow to discuss Dickens, theatre, the business of reading live and why Dickens still inspires and excites the imagination.Ĭharles Dickens Autographed manuscript chapter outline of David Copperfield Estimate: 40,000 - 60,000GBPĪrsalan Mohammad: Simon, what was it that initially drew you to Dickens? What caused the fascination that he has held for you, over the years? In his edit, Dickens stripped back all extraneous material and focused on the action, with contemporaneous accounts from audiences capturing the extraordinary climactic narrative moments, such as the fatal storm at Yarmouth.Īs part of the Sotheby's Talks: Book Week series, on 11 July, actor Simon Callow and novelist Kate Mosse will explore the themes found in 'David Copperfield', as well as delightfully digress towards all manner of Dickensia, in a talk that sees an actor and author paying homage to the man who alchemised the very best characteristics of both. This particular adaptation came to be Dickens's favourite public reading, despite being an especially demanding performance. Audiences flocked to see him in Britain and abroad, compelled not only by his stories, but his performances, such as the ones he gave for 'David Copperfield'. Sketch of Dickens's sister Fanny, bottom left Wikipedia Creative Commonsĭickens, that passionate amateur thespian and ultra-vivid orator, was known for his animated live readings. Sketch of Dickens in 1842 during his first American tour.
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