Dickensblog

Review/recap: Your opinion needed!

It's been a while now since I've done a review/recap of a Dickens film or miniseries -- which kind of makes sense, because it's been a while now since a new one has come out. However, I do have two box sets of older adaptations sitting on the shelf, most of which I've never seen before. So I think I'd like to do another one pretty soon. I've narrowed it down to three possibilities to start with:

• Hard Times (1994), starring Alan Bates, Bob Peck, Bill Paterson, Harriet Walter, and Richard E. Grant.
• Martin Chuzzlewit (1994), starring Paul Scofield, Tom Wilkinson, Philip Franks, and Julia Sawalha.
• Barnaby Rudge (1960), starring John Wood, Barbara Hicks, Nigel Arkwright, Newton Blick, and Joan Hickson.

If any of you want to express a preference, put it in the comment section below. If we don't get any votes, I'll just go ahead and pick one!

Dickens Fellowship Conference photos, part 3

More photos from the birthplace:

From Dickens to the GEICO cavemen ads

The program 99% Invisible draws a line between the two. I'm . . . not sure how I feel about that.

(Also, "Barnaby Rooge"??)

Gerald Dickens meets Grip the Raven

The Washington Post has the story.

Dickens onstage

A few items of theatrical news from around the world:

• Reviews of Simon Callow's Dr. Marigold and Mr. Chops are here, here, and here. Interviews with Callow are here and here.
• Speaking of Callow, Whatsonstage.com has a special members-only offer for his upcoming Christmas Carol.
• Here's an article about the Young Shakespeare Players' 10-hour production of Our Mutual Friend in Madison, Wisconsin. Dickensblog reader David gives his review here.
• Charles Dickens Ghost Stories, a play based on several short stories, is currently running in Arvada, Colorado.
• The Haunted Bride, based on a Dickens short story, is coming to Hartlepool, England.
• The full five-hour version of Nicholas Nickleby recently played in Newcastle, England. Another production is currently running in Toronto, Canada.
• Here's an interview with the author of Scrooge 2070: The Reboot, a new musical that will open next month in Palatine, Illinois.
• The musical version of A Tale of Two Cities is currently running in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. A nonmusical version recently had a run in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England; a review with very spoilery remarks and pictures is here.
• Auditions are underway for a production of Barnaby Rudge in Southsea, England.
• Finally, Stageplays.com is offering 10 percent off the script of The Haunting, a play based on Dickens's ghost stories, until Monday night.

Speaking of 'Martin Chuzzlewit' . . .

I just came across this lovely passage from G. K. Chesterton's introduction to it:

We go for a particular novel to Dickens as we go for a particular inn. We go to the sign of the Pickwick Papers. We go to the sign of the Rudge and Raven. We go to the sign of the Old Curiosities. We go to the sign of the Two Cities. We go to each or all of them according to what kind of hospitality and what kind of happiness we require.

Rather unfortunately, Chesterton goes on to argue that Martin Chuzzlewit is the exception to the rule, thanks to its "melancholy" feel. Still, the imagery is brilliant and, I think, profoundly true.

And Chesterton does go on to say, "He poured into this book genius that might make the mountains laugh, invention that juggled with the stars." So there's that!

Poll results

Thanks to everyone who took the poll about what you'd like to see more of in the new year. While you'll still be seeing all the same kinds of posts, it helps me know how to balance them better and keep things interesting!

As you can see, "analysis and discussion" won in a landslide, with movie reviews in second place. I'd like to invite you all again to comment here and let me know some of your ideas for these, if you have any. My next review will probably be of the first Little Dorrit miniseries (if I can ever get it finished! That thing is LONG!). After that, Barnaby Rudge and then Hard Times, which I've been wanting to see. But I'm open for suggestions for what should come after that!

7 Quick Takes Friday

• Twist the musical is coming to the Pasadena Playhouse in California. Information is here and here.
• The unabridged audiobook of David Copperfield read by Simon Vance made Audible.com's list of top sellers in November. It's currently available for free when you subscribe to one of their plans, along with two weeks of free service. They also have a dramatization of The Chimes, which made their bestseller list for the first week of January.
• Troops and their families got to see a performance of A Christmas Carol at Chicago's Goodman Theatre for free in December, when the theater donated 500 tickets.
• Historians fighting to save a workhouse in London have produced evidence that it was the basis for the depiction of the workhouse in Oliver Twist. (One wonders if Dickens would have been quite so eager to save it.)
• The Riverside Dickens Festival in Riverside, California, begins January 21 with "Mr. Pickwick's Pub Night Dinner Theater." The Festival's featured book this year is Barnaby Rudge. Info is here and here.
• The Pickwick Papers has been translated into Turkish for the first time.
• Second-graders at Westminster Academy in Memphis, Tennessee, got to enjoy a "Dickens Breakfast" before seeing a performance of A Christmas Carol.

The 'Barnaby Rudge' Read: The end

And that's a wrap! But that's not quite the last of Barnaby around here. As soon as I get some time -- possibly during my Christmas break -- I plan to watch and review the 1960 miniseries version. So stay tuned!

The 'Barnaby Rudge' Read: Week 42

"'Here's forgivenesses of injuries, here's amicablenesses!'"

The previous installment gave us some bright pictures, a dark picture, and the return of Miggs. (And quite possibly the longest sentence Dickens ever wrote. Twenty-one lines. I counted.)

And we're in the home stretch! Read the final two chapters this week.