Dickensblog

More virtual Dickens events

California's Great Dickens Christmas Fair has moved online! Go here to find out about the events that will take place over the five weekends (plus Christmas Eve) of "Dickens Fair at Home," and how you can join in.

Meanwhile in Minnesota, the Guthrie Theater and the University of St. Thomas will present "A Christmas Carol and the Common Good," a free online event including readings from the book and a panel discussion of its themes and their relevance. Go here and here to find out more. 

And finally, author and pastor Andy Whitaker Smith is hosting a short series of Zoom classes on his new book, Keeping Christmas: The Journey of Ebenezer Scrooge.  Go here to sign up!

 

Getting creative with 'A Christmas Carol'

Along with everything else it's derailed, the pandemic is wreaking havoc on the usual rush of productions of A Christmas Carol. But many artists are finding ways to bring us the story nevertheless! Here are a few examples I've seen:

• An unusual filmed version of A Christmas Carol, with dancers and celebrity voiceovers (including Carey Mulligan, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Simon Russell Beale, and Andy Serkis), will open in British movie theaters December 4. I'm not sure if we'll be getting this one in the United States at any point. More information is here, here, and here.
• Broadway actor Jefferson Mays has filmed his acclaimed one-man version of the Carol. It will be streamed online November 28 to benefit theaters around the United States. Go here to learn more and to buy tickets.
• Gerald Dickens -- whose one-man version I've seen several times, as many of you know -- has also created a film version, as he reports on his blog. Details about the release to come. 
• In Washington, D.C., Ford's Theatre has turned its annual production of the show into a radio play, which will air on its website on December 7 (members only) and December 14 (general public), and on WAMU 88.5 on Christmas Day.

If you know of any other creative productions of A Christmas Carol that deserve a mention here, please mention them in the comments!

Geoffrey Palmer, R.I.P.

The British actor read an audiobook of A Christmas Carol and also portrayed Thackeray in the 2002 miniseries Dickens. He passed away last Wednesday at age 93. 

Five Tony nominations for 'A Christmas Carol'

Congratulations to A Christmas Carol on Broadway, which got nods for Best Original Score (Christopher Nightingale), Best Scenic Design of a Play (Rob Howell), Best Costume Design of a Play (Rob Howell), Best Lighting Design of a Play (Hugh Vanstone), and Best Sound Design of a Play (Simon Baker)! The awards will be held digitally sometime this fall or winter (the date should be announced soon).

More Dickens stamps

The Isle of Man has released a new batch of Charles Dickens commemorative stamps -- five stamps featuring A Christmas Carol and one featuring the "Lost Portrait." Fans of actor, writer, and Dickensian Simon Callow will be pleased to learn that he has autographed the limited edition first-day covers. Go here to read more, and go here to order them!

A LEGO Carol

Brick Fanatics reports that LEGO.com is giving away this charming new Christmas Carol  set with purchases!

'A World Full of Dickens Stories': A review

By Tai French, guest blogger

A World Full of Dickens Stories: 8 Best-Loved Classic Tales Retold for Children by Angela McAllister (Frances Lincoln Children's Books, 2020)

The works of Charles Dickens, though marvelous, can be a tad daunting at first, especially for the young. With a dizzying array of characters, unfamiliar social mores and settings, and a wealth of subplots, a full-length Dickens novel can quickly overwhelm a novice or reluctant reader. Imagine how helpful a trusted guide could be, one who helps the reader keep track of the primary characters and follow the golden thread of the story through its twists and turns! A World Full of Dickens Stories is just such a faithful guide.

Steven Knight's next Dickens adaptation announced

The next Dickensian miniseries from the team behind the BBC/FX Christmas Carol will be . . . wait for it . . . Great Expectations. (It never seems to occur to anyone to give us a new Barnaby Rudge or Martin Chuzzlewit or Dombey and Son). Personally, I just hope it's a bit less grim than their previous outing. 

From the book pile

We'll start off this round of reviews with some fiction.

• A Tale of Two Murders and Grave Expectations by Heather Redmond (Kensington Books, 2019). For her "A Dickens of a Crime" series, mystery author Redmond takes young journalist Charles Dickens as her detective, investigating crimes featuring plots and characters that will one day be repurposed for his novels. (The next installment, A Christmas Carol Murder, is due out in September.) Dickens investigates the strange cases that pop up around London with the help of the pretty and vivacious young Catherine Hogarth, along with his brother Fred and other characters, both real and fictional. Those who know Dickens's works well will enjoy the copious Dickensian Easter eggs scattered throughout these books; others may simply enjoy the mysteries and learn a few things about Dickens's life and world. (And if watching Charles and Catherine's relationship blossom makes your heart ache a little, well, my friend, you're not the only one.)
• Marley by Jon Clinch (Atria Books, 2019). Clinch is without question a fine writer, and one who clearly knows the original Christmas Carol forwards and backwards. He brings a prodigious imagination to bear on Dickens's characters and plotlines in writing this prequel, in which he takes the intriguing path of making Scrooge a good man who goes wrong through the noblest of motives -- trying to outwit and rein in his unabashedly crooked partner, Marley. The maneuverings and one-upmanship between the two men, and the other characters who get swept up in it all, make Marley a fascinating tale in its own right. And yet Clinch's almost unrelentingly bleak tone in this novel left a bitter aftertaste, with only the tiniest, almost imperceptible drop of hope to temper it. I was positively appalled by the fate he devised for Fan -- a fate not only cruel in itself, but one brought on by an unfathomably cruel ongoing deception of her. I can't deny Clinch's great creativity and skill -- but I can't help wishing they'd gone in a different direction. 

More reviews coming shortly! (Note: As Amazon is understandably tied up at the moment, I'll be linking to publishers' sites and other booksellers' sites instead for the foreseeable future.)

News roundup

Just wanted to share a few news items before beginning the book reviewing:

• The Dickens Museum is, unsurprisingly, closed indefinitely, but remains active on social media. Actor Dominic Gerrard, who has performed a one-man Christmas Carol there, has done a reading of the first chapter of A Tale of Two Cities to raise money for the Museum.
• The joint Dickens Fellowship/Dickens Society Symposium in London in July is still scheduled to go ahead, but organizers are monitoring things and will make a final decision in May.
• In the New Yorker, Amy Davidson Sorkin argues, "Esther Summerson is one of the great heroines of literature, in part because she understands the vital importance of social distancing and isolation, even when it is hard."
• Phyllis Rose is re-releasing her 1983 book Parallel Lives, which focuses on five Victorian couples, including Charles and Catherine Dickens. In an interview with the Guardian, Rose argues that "is disappointing, and incredibly small-minded" to "cancel" great writers like Dickens over their bad behavior. The new edition of her book can be ordered here.   
• The TV series "Great British Menu" has a children's literature theme this year, in honor of the 150th anniversary of Dickens's death. (Seemed like a bit of a stretch to me too, but apparently it has something to do with Oliver Twist being the first child protagonist. Anyway, I'd never carp about a show honoring Dickens for any reason!)
• Dr. Pete Orford is beginning a Hard Times readalong on April 1.