Enjoy a seasonal treat in the spirit of Christmas past, present and future and experience being in the audience in 1860 watching ‘Charles Dickens’ as he makes his first public performance of A Christmas Carol.
Celebrating the 175th anniversary of the publication of Charles Dicken’s, A Christmas Carol, European Arts Company return to Stantonbury next Friday (November 30) with their authentic and refreshing adaptation of this timeless tale.
This exciting production, adapted from Dickens’ own public reading scripts and eye witness accounts of him on stage, recreates the spirit of Dickens’ original performances.
Tom Paris’s design welcome audiences into Dickens’ intimate study, a warm inviting environment full of festive cheer and hidden surprises. The set is based on Dickens’ own London rooms and takes inspiration from a rich tradition of Victorian illusion, imagination and early theatrical trickery.
Few people know that Charles Dickens originally wanted to be an actor and A Christmas Carol was the first public performance he gave of his own work. After his opening night he said: “The success was most wonderful and prodigious – perfectly overwhelming and astounding altogether!”
Dickens enacted the work over 150 times and the effect on the public was phenomenal; he had a magnetic stage presence, riveting eyes, expressive voice and wonderful powers of characterisation.
Remarkably, Dickens made more money from his readings than all his novels and stories put together.
Dickens was passionately interested in the welfare of the poor and children in particular and many of his early readings were for charity. Doctor Thomas Barnardo was a contemporary of Dickens and inspired to set up his first Ragged School partly as a result of Dickens’ writings and campaigning. This performance is part of a tour which is in aid of the children’s charity, Barnardo’s.
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