Tags
Central Methodist Church, Charles Dickens, Doctor Marigold, Fishergate Preston, Gerald Dickens, Guild Hall Preston, Hard Times, Preston, Preston Historical Society, The Bull Hotel, The Great Preston Lock Out 1853, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
On Wednesday I once again returned to the North West of England, which seems to have been a second home for me over that last few months. This time I was travelling to Preston, to perform for the City’s Historical Society which is celebrating a 75th anniversary this year. I have been to Preston a few times in the past, but had never really explored the city, my previous venue being the Playhouse Theatre, a short drive from the centre.
As is my routine, I loaded the car early, even earlier than usual due to the various traffic delays I had experienced on my last trips, and set off towards the ever more familiar M40/M6 route north. On this occasion the roads played ball, and I was not delayed at all. I had time to run through my scripts for the evening, and listen to some podcasts, as well as having a lovely chat with my brother Ian, who is currently glowing in the pride of having a new grandson.
I arrived at my hotel by 3pm, and having settled in decided to use my time to walk into the centre, to find out where my venue was, and also to try and track down the movements of Charles himself, who had visited Preston on three different occasions. Firstly I found the Central Methodist Church, my location for the evening, and only a 5 minute walk from the hotel, which was convenient.
Having found my bearings, I took my mind back to the 1800s when Preston was an industrial textile town, riven with discord and anger. Although I was to perform Mr Dickens is Coming, the society were keen for me to include some details of Charles’s visits into the script, so I had spent the last couple of weeks looking through the various biographies, pouring over his letters, and studying newspaper reports building a picture for myself of his impressions and movements.
The first visit was in January 1854 at the time of great industrial unrest in Preston. A great strike had been rumbling on for months between textile workers and the factory owners, over a pay reduction of 10%. The workers demanded that their wages be returned to the previous rate, but the bosses were not to be moved and eventually the factories were shut up in a stand-off known as the ‘great lock out’. Families were in severe poverty, and the city came out to support their own, opening subscription lists and taking collections to provide much needed funding for their comrades.
An article about the lock out had been published in Charles’ magazine Household Words, and he wanted to see the situation for himself, especially as he was working on his great Industrial Revolution novel Hard Times, which was set in a northern mill town, not dissimilar to Preston. The first installments of the novel were released a few months after Dickens’ visit, and it was assumed by many that what he had seen had provided him with the inspiration for the book, but he vehemently denied that. When a review in the London Illustrated News made that assumption he quickly wrote to the journalist involved, saying:
‘I don’t know where you may have found your information, but I can assure you that it is altogether wrong. The title was many weeks old, and chapters of the story were written, before I went to Preston or thought about the present Strike. The mischief of such a statement is twofold. First, it encourages the public to believe in the impossibility that books are produced in that very sudden and Cavalier manner, and Secondly in this instance it has this pernicious bearing: It localizes (so far as your readers are concerned) a story which has a direct purpose in reference to the working people all over England, and it will cause, as I know by former experience, characters to be fitted on to individuals whom I never saw or heard of in my life.’
There is no doubt however that he drew on his experiences to provide gritty colour to his writing, and the first description of Coketown is one of his finest passages (ranking alongside the brilliant opening to Bleak House(,, and certainly has Preston as its heart:
‘It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and to-morrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next’
Brilliant stuff.
Charles returned to Preston in 1867 to perform his readings (Doctor Marigold and The Trial), and was scheduled to visit again in 1869, bringing his new and powerful piece ‘Sikes and Nancy’, which was now the talk of the entire country, and the centerpiece of that year’s tour. On April 20th he had performed in Bolton, and had two days rest before his scheduled appearance at The Guild Hall in Preston. Throughout the tour, indeed ever since he had returned from the USA a year or so before, Charles Dickens had been complaining of poor health, which he blamed on the harsh American winter – his foot was swollen and giving him great pain, to the extent that he was in almost constant correspondence with his doctor in London, begging for ever stronger medication to get him through his travels. Installed at The Bull Hotel in Preston Dickens had once again written to Doctor Beard, who on this occasion decided to travel north to see his patient in person. It was on the day of the performance that the doctor arrived, and by then Dickens and his manager, George Dolby, had completed preparations at the hall for the evening’s event (which naturally was a sell-out), and had walked the short distance back to the hotel. Doctor Beard examined Charles and then quietly told him that on no account should he perform that night, or for the rest of the tour – his very survival depended on it. According to Dolby’s account, Charles was crying as preparations for cancelling the rest of the tour were put into place. The two men packed up their belongings, and took a coach to Liverpool, and from there to London.
Back in Preston the event organisers were in a quandary, for all of the ticket money had been banked, and at this time of night the banks were shut, meaning that there was no way that refunds could be offered to anyone who came to the Guild Hall (it was already 5pm and the show was due to start at 8). With a great sense of civic co-operation the landlord at The Bull offered to lend the money, whilst the police force started visiting the homes of as many audience members as they could get to, so as to alert them of the cancellation.
Exploring Preston last week, I walked up Fishergate, the main shopping street, until I stood outside the old Bull hotel, now a thriving, noisy pub called The Bull and Royal.
The paint on the old building was peeling, and various signs told inquisitive potential customers that there were big screens showing various sports, and that there was a pool room also. Also in the arch, which in 1869 would have seen the departure of Charles Dickens’ coach, was a large painted cut out of Mr Pickwick, arm outstretched (inspired by the illustration in The Pickwick Papers in which he is addressing members of The Pickwick Club at The George and Vulture Chop House in London), welcoming revellers in. I doubt if any of the drinkers now know what an important part this building had played in the performing career of Charles Dickens, but it was moving for me to stand there and recall that sad evening 154 years before.
From The Bull I walked back down Fishergate until I reached Guild Hall Street in which, it may be supposed, the old Guild Hall, where Dickens had been due to perform, would have stood, but there was no sign of it now. My respectful meanderings now over, I returned to my hotel where I rested and showered before making my way back to The Central Methodist Church to prepare for my show.
The church is situated on one of the main roads, with double yellow lines restricting parking and unloading to the front, but I had been told that there was a loading bay at the back, and following the route I had reconnoitered earlier I pulled up at the door at precisely 5.30pm, and found that Stewart Turner, my contact at the historical society, was anxiously waiting for me at the door. We unloaded my things, carried them up some narrow stairs, until he pushed open a door and we emerged into the absolutely glorious surroundings of the sanctuary. The church had been built in 1818, and appears to be in magnificent condition, in fact it very much reminded me of the Broad Street United Methodist Church in Burlington, New Jersey, which has been a regular venue on my American tours, with its large balcony, curling around three sides of the room, looking down upon the altar rail below.
Having unloaded the car, I had to find somewhere to park it, and after a short discussion it was decided that the best place was back at my hotel, which was only a 10 minute walk away, so I drove back once more, left the car and returned to start setting up for Mr Dickens is Coming. The space available to me was not huge, and we agreed to stop people sitting in the front row, or I would have been on top of them, but my red replica reading desk and the red fabric screen looked plush and at home in such sumptuous surroundings.
The audience started to arrive at around 6.30, for a 7pm start, so I withdrew into the rooms behind the altar, changed and waited for the off. Unfortunately there was heavy traffic and confusing roadworks in the city, and quite a few of the audience were caught up, meaning that we delayed the start time to 7.20ish. When everyone was gathered, Stewart welcomed them, and then passed proceedings over to a local be-chained councillor who began talking about Dickens’ visits to the city. I was in a slight state of panic at that moment, for I had inserted the passages that I have quoted in this post, into the script, and I was worried that the introduction would render them needless and repetitive when I got to them. However the councillor didn’t go into too much detail, and soon I was on the stage and starting the show.
The audience were lovely and laughed loudly, and listened intently to the various characters from Copperfield, Pickwick and others. Mr Dickens is Coming is one of my oldest scripts. but I had chosen two places to shoehorn the Preston connection in, and I was quite worried about remembering when and how I had decided to do it. It is one thing rehearsing at home, but when I was in the full flow of a very familiar script, I was worried that I would get confused. In the reality, although slightly clunky, the passages fitted in just fine, and in no time I was nearing the end of the first act, culminating in the descriptions of Dickens’ performance of Sikes and Nancy, his ill-health, the scene at The Bull and eventual retirement. Everything worked very well, and the applause as I left the stage was wonderful.
For my second act I had originally suggested that I would like to perform Doctor Marigold (as CD had done in the city). but the organisers were worried that it would be difficult to sell tickets for it, as I had performed it in Preston before, and it is not a well known piece, so instead I would be doing Nickleby, which is my regular show for this year. In hindsight it would have been good to read Sikes and Nancy, as Charles had planned to do on the 22 April, but NickNick would be more lively and entertaining, and I now knew that is what this audience would enjoy.
Changing from Mr Dickens to Nickleby requires a slight change of set, so once I had changed costume, I slipped back into the church to move things around. It was an interesting lesson in body language and performance skills, for I sidled onto the stage and avoided eye contact with anyone, as I furtively moved furniture around, whereas just minutes before, I had been open and bold, loud and brash, almost daring anyone to look anywhere but at me.
With all the changes made, I returned to my dressing room and waited until everyone had coffees, teas and biscuits as required (which took quite a long time). Eventually I got the nod from Stewart and walked confidently back to the stage, the centre of attention once more, and getting a big round of applause as I did so.
The second half was as well received as the first, and although we were running late due to the earlier traffic delays, everyone seemed very happy with the outcome of the performance, whilst for me I felt that I had somehow helped Charles to deliver the show in Preston that he had been unable to do himself.
As the audience left I changed and packed up my bags, and then started to put my props and costumes away. I walked back to the hotel where I retrieved the car at around 9.50 pm, then drove back to the church and loaded the furniture in before saying my goodbyes and thanks to Stewart and various other committee members and returning to the hotel once more. At the front desk I asked if they were still serving food, but the lady explained that the kitchens closed at 10. If only I had thought about ordering 15 minutes earlier, when I picked up the car, I could have had something waiting for my return taken it straight up to my room. As it was I resorted to a delivery app and waited for twenty minutes until a pizza appeared.
My day in Preston had been a strangely moving and emotional one. I had discovered a part of Charles’ life that I did not really know before, and I think it would be fun to try and create a show about April 22, 1869. Leave it with me, I shall let you know what occurs!