Dickensblog

Upcoming Dickens conferences

Next year's Dickens Society Symposium will be hosted by the City University of London, July 8-10. Go here for more information.

Speaking of conferences, the virtual Dickens Universe begins today, with orientation at 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Pacific. If any of you plan to be there, I look forward to seeing you via Zoom or Slack!

TCM alert

A Tale of Two Cities (1935) airs on the channel at 6 a.m. Eastern tomorrow.

'Oliver Twist' in the news

Today we have a few different Oliver-related items of interest:

• The Daily Mail has some photos from the set of the new "Dodger" series, featuring Christopher Eccleston (Fagin) and Saira Choudhry (Nancy).
• The Guardian has a nice article about the Charles Dickens Museum's new Oliver Twist-themed walking tour.
• Finally, i news has an article about a couple of letters that the Museum is displaying in its new exhibit on Oliver Twist, which opened yesterday. The letters -- one written by Dickens himself, and one by his doctor -- show the toll that Dickens's public readings of the "Sikes and Nancy" episode took on his physical and emotional health.

R.I.P., Teresa Derrington

One of the all-time most popular Dickensblog posts was my 2013 interview with Teresa Derrington Cozens-Hardy, who appeared as Fred's maid in the 1951 adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Though her performance was very brief, generations of viewers have fallen in love with her gentle air and the kind smile with which she encouraged a nervous Scrooge. Many of you commented to tell me how much that performance means to you and how much you enjoyed reading her thoughts about it.

I received a tip the other day from reader Velicia, who saw the news on Facebook, that Teresa had passed away last winter. Family members confirmed that Teresa did indeed pass away on January 28, 2021, at age 89, after having a stroke in her sleep. According to her son Matthew, "she was reasonably active up until the end" and died peacefully. She was buried in Blakeney, Norfolk, after a service at St. Peter's Catholic Church there, attended by her five children and her surviving sibling Bernadette. 

I'll always be grateful that I had the chance to speak with Teresa, who was as kind and gracious in person as her character was onscreen, and to share a bit of her story with you all. My prayers and thoughts are with her family and loved ones. Special thanks to her relative Paul Tollet, who first told us who she was, and her sons Matthew and Tom Hepenstal, who helped arrange the interview. 

One more note: From the Facebook comment by her oldest grandchild, Simon Thomas, that first made us aware of Teresa's passing, I discovered that I had originally spelled her first name wrong (with an "h"). Paul and Matthew both confirmed the correct spelling when I asked them about it last week. I'm not sure how this happened, as I'm usually very careful to spell names right (having had my own spelled wrong many times!), but somehow it did happen. I apologize for my mistake and will go back and correct the spelling on all previous posts about Teresa. I'll see what I can do about correcting it on Wikipedia and IMDb as well.

(Image courtesy VCI Entertainment)

'Twist' coming to the U.S.

Although its reception in the U.K. wasn't particularly warm, the new film Twist is nonetheless making its way over here, with a theatrical and digital release set for July 30. Flickering Myth has a new trailer and poster. 

'Spirited' getting ready to film

The Will Ferrell-Ryan Reynolds version of A Christmas Carol, now titled Spirited, will start filming next month in Braintree, Massachusetts. Reynolds will play Scrooge, Ferrell will be the Ghost of Christmas Present, and Octavia Spencer is on board to play the Bob Cratchit role. Sean Anders (Instant Family, Daddy's Home) will direct.

Flowers for Dickens

Today, on the 151st anniversary of Dickens's death, Lucinda Hawksley tweeted out pictures (here, here, and here) of the beautiful wreaths placed on her great-great-great-grandfather's grave. One is from the Dickens Fellowship, the other -- made with Dickens's favorite flower, the scarlet geranium -- from the children of Gad's Hill School. 

As John Forster wrote of Dickens's funeral, "Then, later in the day and all the following day, came unbidden mourners in such crowds, that the Dean had to request permission to keep open the grave until Thursday; but after it was closed they did not cease to come . . . . He alluded to this in the impressive funeral discourse delivered by him in the Abbey on the morning of Sunday the 19th, pointing to the fresh flowers that then had been newly thrown (as they still are thrown, in this the fourth year after his death), and saying that 'the spot would thenceforward be a sacred one with both the New World and the Old, as that of the representative of the literature, not of this island only, but of all who speak our English tongue.'"

Dickens tributes coming in

In honor of the 151st anniversary of Dickens's death on June 9, a wreath was laid on his grave today -- a day early, "so as not to clash with the Abbey's use as a temporary vaccination centre," according to the Dickens Museum. Meanwhile, a bouquet of roses was left near his home in Rochester.

Gerald Dickens on the Staplehurst train crash

Gerald Dickens is joining the family novel-writing business! He's working on a novel about the train crash that nearly killed his great-great-grandfather, and will be giving a talk about it on June 9, the anniversary of the crash, at Revelation Ashford in Kent. More information is here, and tickets for the talk are available here.

Dickens Museum reopens tomorrow

And Dickens descendant Lucinda Hawksley will be there signing her books! Hope some of you Londoners can make it!