Fans step again in dinner time with Charles Dickens in spectacular festive efficiency
Megastar author Charles Dickens was his era’s equivalent of Beyoncé – now fans can ‘meet’ him in live show A Christmas Carol Experience
Is there anything more Christmassy than A Christmas Carol? The Victorians gave us the holiday we know – from the cards and the crackers to the decorated tree – and Charles Dickens’ ghost story gets right to the heart of it.
Now, with less than a month to go until the big day, we’re diving head-first into the season of goodwill. We met actor David Alwyn, who’ll be living as the writer for most of the next month…
David doesn’t look much like Charles Dickens – at least, as most people imagine him. It’s easier to think of the author as an older gent, scowling at the camera with wild hair and an unkempt beard.
But in fact, the two men have more in common than you’d think. Dickens always fancied himself as a bit of a thesp. Aged 20, he was due to audition for a play at London’s Covent Garden theatre, but had to pull out after catching a cold.
Following the success of 1843 novel A Christmas Carol, he started performing it live for his fans. In the 17 years before his death, aged 58, in 1870, he gave 127 three-hour readings of the tale.
So, David’s role might be even more authentic than his audience realise. Until January 4, he’s performing in The Great Christmas Feast, an immersive theatre event retelling the famous story.
David will play the novelist himself, along with many of his characters, including Scrooge, Marley and Tiny Tim.
“I think it’s very much in keeping with the way Dickens would want this story to be told,” he says. “It’s a very sort of raucous, warm – I use the word unctuous – performance style and setting.
“We welcome you into Charles Dickens’ home, feed you and give you lots to drink, then have some lunatic jump about on stage and do a lot of silly voices at you.”
Not that the performance is taking place anywhere as dull as a theatre. Organisers The Lost Estate have decked out their headquarters in West Kensington, London, in the style of a Victorian house.
It’s not far from some of the 22 addresses Dickens occupied in the capital, which features heavily in books like Oliver Twist. The best-known is at Doughty Street in Bloomsbury, now home to the Charles Dickens Museum.
And for David, it all adds to the sense of stepping back in time. “You’re not an audience, per se”, he explains. “You are guests of Charles Dickens, so in you come. I can hear everything you’re saying, you can hear everything I’m saying. We’re all just going to tell this story together.”
It’s an exciting enough prospect for any theatregoer, especially one who’s getting fed. Guests will be treated to a three-course meal inspired by “the fare that Charles’ house staff would have served up.”
But for Victorian fans, it would have been like spending an evening with Beyoncé. Dickens was often mobbed by admirers, who swarmed his hotel when he visited the US and tried to steal pieces of his coat.
David adds: “He was kind of a punk rock writer, very popular and very famous. In Victorian society he would have been more like a socialite and a celebrity at this point – much less held in the glass case that we now put him in of just like, serious literature.”
And like many celebrities, he also had his dark side. He left his wife Catherine, the mother of his 10 children, at the age of 45 and shacked up with 18-year-old actress Ellie Ternan, keeping their relationship a secret from his fans.
“He was definitely eccentric,” David admits. “I don’t know if you’d want to have more than one drink with him, because you might end up in the sea.”
But it’s Christmas, so none of that matters right now. A toast to Mr Dickens, the Founder of the Feast.
· The Great Christmas Feast is running at The Lost Estate, London, until January 4. For more information and tickets, head to christmasfeast.thelostestate.com
Five festive facts about A Christmas Carol
- It took a 31-year-old Dickens just six weeks to write, while struggling with debt and planning for the birth of his fifth child.
- The novel was first published on December 19, 1843 and had sold out by Christmas Eve. By 1844, it had gone through 13 printings.
- Dickens hardly made any money from the first few editions, because he insisted on his printers using only the best-quality materials.
- According to the Internet Movie Database, more than 100 films have been made of the story. The first was 1901 silent short Marley’s Ghost.
- It’s also inspired at least two ballets and four operas.
