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. This script has
a running times of 80 minutes and 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.
The
Intimate Dickens was specially written for the author's own
drama group, the Mercators, and was premičred 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 Ł600 per
year.
MR1
As if Mrs Dickens were a lady of
distinction and I a man of fortune.
FR1
On the 29th 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.
The cast of the first production by the Mercators. Edinburgh Festival Fringe, August
2007
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Plays by
Alan Richardson