Plays by Alan Richardson

The Inimitable Dickens

Oliver Twist… Nicholas Nickleby… Great Expectations… and much more
The man behind the legend that was Charles Dickens

    Devised to be staged as a rehearsed dramatised reading by a flexible team of performers, scripts are used, but many passages are best memorised. There are many opportunities for imaginative movement and action. Period costume would be a colourful option and the number of players involved can be easily adapted to suit. The script is drawn from many of the excellent biographies available, particularly those by Peter Ackroyd and Fred Kaplan.  Extracts include not only his popular novels such as Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend, but some of his lesser known works. Three versions of this script are available with  running times of 50 minutes, 80 minutes and 1hour 40 minutes.
    The Intimate Dickens was specially written for the author's own drama group, the Mercators, and was premièred at the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. 

Sample Scene

(Note: MR1 = First male reader. MR1 = Second male reader. 
FR1 = First female reader. FR2 = Second female reader.)

FR1     In 1857, Dickens’s company of actors were due to perform at Manchester Free Trade Hall. Concerned that his amateur actresses would not be heard in a large venue, he hired professionals. Amongst them was a young girl named Ellen Ternan. Dickens played Richard Wardour, who sacrifices himself to save others, and dies in the arms of his sister, played by Ellen. The play ended, but he could not get Ellen out of his mind. She left for another engagement in Doncaster. He followed, ostensibly to research an article for Household Words.

MR1   I do suppose that there was never a man so seized and rended by one spirit.

FR2     He was forty five and she was… eighteen.

FR1      “Ellen Ternan came like a breath of spring into the hard-working life of Charles Dickens – and enslaved him. She flattered him – he was ever appreciative of praise and though she was not a good actress she had brains, which she used to bring her mind more on a level with his own. Who could blame her? He had the world at his feet. She was a young girl, elated and proud to be noticed by him.”

FR2     That observation was by his daughter, Katey. Dickens, the public man, was so guarded about his private life, that, to this day, the question; was she or wasn’t she his mistress? - has never been conclusively answered. Scandal could destroy both of them.

MR1   I am a dangerous man to be seen with, for so many people know me.

FR2     On one occasion, they were observed by the wife of a hostile newspaper proprietor.

FR1     “Travelling with him was a lady not his wife, or his sister-in-law, yet he strutted about with the air of a man bristling with self-importance”

FR2     One year after meeting Ellen, his marriage ended – spectacularly. He had already moved out of the marital bedroom into an adjoining dressing room and moved a bookshelf to block the door when a piece of jewellery intended for Ellen was delivered by mistake to Catherine. For a man in his position, divorce was out of the question, so he tried to keep it all private. He proposed that they lived separately in the same house, only appearing together to receive visitors. Or that she lived in France while he lived in England. Or that she stayed in the country when he was in town, and vice versa. She refused. Any hope of keeping the affair private was ended by his blundering attempts to justify himself in the press. He claimed she had been a bad mother who never cared for her children. That she suffered from a “mental disorder” and that the decision to live apart was hers. Katey Dickens spoke out;

FR1     “My father was like a madman. This affair brought out all that was worst – all that was weakest in him.”

FR2     When rumours began to spread about a “third party”, his language became even more intemperate.

MR1   Misrepresentations, most grossly false, most monstrous, most cruel, abominably false.

FR2     A formal separation was finally agreed. He would provide Catherine with her own house and an allowance of £600 per year.

MR1   As if Mrs Dickens were a lady of distinction and I a man of fortune.

FR1     On the 29^th of May, 1858, she departed. They would never meet again. But his sister-in-law, Georgina remained. That got tongues wagging even more. Dickens attempted to ride out the storm by plunging himself into more work. His publishers had refused to print one of his defamatory statements in Punch, so he changed publishers and launched a new weekly periodical. He thought he had a great title.

MR1   “Household Harmony”.   

FR1     Not surprisingly, that was changed to All the Year Round.

FR2     “Mr Dickens happens to be extremely unpopular just now, owing to the well-grounded feeling of dislike to the publicity he has given to his domestic affairs.”

FR1     Mrs Gaskell concluded. But Dickens knew the sure way to win his public.

FR2     To boost the launch of All the Year Round, he started a new novel. It begins with one of his most famous lines.

MR2   It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

FR2     A Tale of Two Cities is set in London and revolutionary Paris. Sydney Carton sacrifices himself to save another and closes the novel with an equally famous line;

MR2   It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.  

FR2     Weekly sales of All the Year Round exceeded one hundred thousand. And when sales fell again after that novel ended, he followed up one classic with another – Great Expectations. Young Pip visits Manor House and meets Miss Havisham and her adopted daughter, Estella.

MR1   In an armchair sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see. She was dressed in rich materials -- satins, and lace, and silks -- all of white.  And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow.

FR1     Who is it?

MR2   Pip, ma'am.

FR1     Pip?

MR2   Mr Pumblechook's boy, ma'am. Come -- to play.

FR1    Come nearer; let me look at you. Come close.

MR1   It was when I stood before her, avoiding her eyes, that I took note of the surrounding objects in detail, and saw that her watch had stopped at twenty minutes to nine, and that a clock in the room had stopped at twenty minutes to nine.

FR1     Look at me. You are not afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since you were born?

MR2   No.

FR1     Do you know what I touch here?

MR1   She said, laying her hands, one upon the other, on her left side.

MR2   Yes, ma'am.

FR1     What do I touch?

MR2   Your heart.

FR1     Broken! I am tired. I want diversion, and I have done with men and women. I sometimes have sick fancies and I have a sick fancy that I want to see some play. Call Estella. You can do that. Call Estella. At the door.

MR1   To stand in the dark in a mysterious passage of an unknown house, bawling Estella to a scornful young lady was almost as bad as playing to order. But, she answered at last, and her light came along the dark passage like a star.

FR1     Let me see you play cards with this boy.

FR2     With this boy! Why, he is a common labouring-boy!

FR1     Well? You can break his heart.

FR2     What do you play, boy?

MR2   Nothing but beggar my neighbour, miss.

FR1     Beggar him.

MR1   So we sat down to cards. It was then I began to understand that everything in the room had stopped, like the watch and the clock, a long time ago.

FR2     He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy! And what coarse hands he has! And what thick boots!

MR1   Her contempt was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it.

FR2     Many years later, after Pip has successfully made his way in the world, he sees Estella differently.

FR1     Is she beautiful, graceful, well-grown? Do you admire her?

MR2   Everybody must who sees her, Miss Havisham.

FR1     Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces -- love her! Hear me, Pip! I adopted her to be loved. I bred her and educated her, to be loved. I developed her into what she is, that she might be loved. Love her. I'll tell you what real love is. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter -- as I did!

The cast of the first production by the Mercators. Edinburgh Festival Fringe, August 2007 

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