Two Nights at Highclere

Tags

A Christmas Carol, A Christmas Carol film, Charles Dickens, Downton Abbey, Highclere Castle, The Café Royal

My final week of performing continued on Monday, just a week after returning from America, with the first of two performances at the magnificent Highclere Castle.

I had left my hotel in York at around 9am and with a decent drive I managed to get home for some lunch and time with with the family (the latter having been a rarity over the previous month), but at 2.15 it was time to get back into the car and head to the beautifully castellated and be-towered cuboid home that in real life is the home of Lord and Lady Carnarvon, and in fiction is the ancestral home of the Crawley family in the guise of Downton Abbey.

I first performed at Highclere two years ago, and the event had been a great success, but sadly one that we couldn’t repeat in ’20, for obvious reasons, but in 2021 Lady Carnarvon was anxious to celebrate Christmas well in the old house and booked me for a double stint, with shows on both Monday and Tuesday.

As the sun lowered in the sky I turned into the long driveway and was delighted when a security guard flagged me down and cheerily said ‘Hello Mr Dickens, just follow the road up to the front door where you can unload!’ so I swept into the large gravel area in front of the house and pulled up outside the great front door (such a spacious area deserves a good ‘sweep’). As I opened the car door I was cheerily greeted by John, the Castle Manager, who opened the large front door for me, and helped me load my things in to the Saloon, the great space, dominated by a huge Christmas tree, which forms the heart of the house and where I would be performing.

Two years ago a decent sized stage had been erected in front of the huge stone fireplace, and that had been surrounded by around 80 seats. This year numbers had been reduced to 50, to allow guests to distance as they required, and about a metre had been lost from the stage, to allow more room between me and the front row. Once I had my furniture placed I could see that the performances this year were not destined to be terribly active ones, as I wasn’t going to have much room to move.

I chatted to John, and Charlotte, the events manager with whom I have been corresponding during the year, and ran through the running plan for the event (start at 5, interval at 5.45, 30-minute interval, second act at 6.15, finish at 7 and then join the guests for supper). I also ran through the sound queues with Charlotte, and then took myself off to one of the ‘back stage’ private rooms where I laid out my costumes and changed into costume.

As I sat waiting waiting for 5 pm to tick around an email came in from The Café Royal in the heart of London, where I was due to be performing on Wednesday evening, saying that it was with great reluctance that they had been forced to cancel the event, due to the fact that many of the guests had decided that they didn’t want to be with groups of people in the middle of London, where the Omicrom Variant of Covid had been spreading rapidly through the previous week. I had fully expected to loose some shows as the national situation worsened and there was always the possibility that the government would introduce tighter restrictions on events, and scupper the lot. If the Café Royal event was to be the only victim, then I would be relieved.

At 5 o’clock I made my way through the various corridors and met with John, who would be introducing me to the stage. All of the guests had arrived, had been given a welcoming glass of champagne and were now sat in the Saloon ready for the show. I made my way to the top of the staircase, and John walked onto the stage where he said a few words and then welcomed me. Charlotte brought the music cue in perfectly and I walked down the stairs, through the audience and up onto my little stage. To my left sat Liz and our good friends Nikki and Martin. Highclere generously offer me the opportunity of bringing guests to the show, and it was so nice to see ‘my team’ among the audience (this would be the first time that Liz has actually seen the show for two years, and the first time that Nikki and Martin had ever seen it, although Martin worked closely with me on the creation of the video version, which is once again available to rent – details at the end of the post).

Despite the lack of space to move, indeed maybe as a result of it, the show was a very good one, concentrating more on the storytelling aspect, rather than the brash theatricality. I could tell that the little pieces of knock-about business wouldn’t play well with this group, so I didn’t bother with encouraging them to gasp at Mrs Cratchit’s goose, or to sigh in delight when the pudding was produced, I just told the story, and the show was the better for it.

The interval came and went, and I was soon calling to the young boy from Scrooge’s window. When I finally wished everyone a ‘Happy Christmas’ (remembering that I was now in England), and left the stage, the applause echoed loudly around the old walls, and I returned to take my bows to all sides, indeed I was called back once more for a second round of bowing. It was a lovely and rewarding experience.

I hurried back to my dressing room where I changed into a jacket and tie, so that I could join Liz, Nikki and Martin in the festive marquee which had been erected in the courtyard at the rear of the house and where tables had been prepared for each individual bubble of audience members. The menu featured salmon and beetroot, delicious Scotch Eggs with golden yolks, a demitasse of mushroom soup, all finished up with a mince pie and a chocolate caramel cup. Glasses of champagne were regularly refilled, although with a drive ahead of us all, we had to decline further top-ups. This was a rather different dining experience to the various meals delivered to me by Uber Eats over the last few weeks!

It had been a lovely evening, made so much more special by having Liz and our friends there.

The following evening I was back at Highclere for the second show and this time as I drove up to the house there was a beautiful golden setting sun behind creating an image that would have had the film crews of Downton Abbey running for their cameras to capture.

I made my way back to the dressing room and discovered that the staff had brought in a hat stand and hung all of my costumes up for me, as well as laying my shoes neatly out. It was as if the butler had come in, which was rather grand.

The preparations for the show, and the show itself followed the same routine as the day before, although the audience were a little more restrained. On stage it is very difficult to judge how people are reacting when most of their faces are hidden behind masks, but it seemed as if everyone was having fun, and the enthusiastic applause at the end certainly backed up that supposition.

After I had taken my bows I changed and packed my things up, and returned to the Saloon. I was not joining the guests for dinner tonight, so once I had retrieved the car and brought it to the front door, I could load up and return home by 8 0’clock, where I could have a supper at home with Liz – a rare treat!

Highclere Castle is a truly wonderful venue to perform A Christmas Carol in and I am delighted that it has become a fixture on my UK tour.

For any of you who haven’t been able to see the show this year, or who need an extra fix, remember that my film version is available to rent, and you can access it through the following link

TO RENT GERALD DICKENS’ A CHRISTMAS CAROL: https://tinyurl.com/ychp7t3r

An Unexpected Audition and An Unexpected Companion

Tags

A Christmas Carol, A Christmas Carol First Edition, Cafe Royal, Charles Dickens, London, Mr Fezziwig, Shield Beetle, Winterthur

I woke early on Thursday morning (to be honest, my body clock simply hasn’t adapted through this whole trip), so I sat up in bed writing my blog post and sipping coffee, until it was time to get ready for breakfast. I had arranged to meet David and Teresa at 8.30, and I walked from The Carriage House, where my room was situated, to the main building and, just as I was asking for orange juice and coffee my friends joined me. We sat a large table and soon were tucking into plates of pancakes (David and I), and a frittata (Teresa). The conversation picked up easily from where it had ended the night before and the time sped by, until we had three empty plates before us. As we sat and talked, a message came in from home – Liz was just settling down to watch our youngest daughter perform in her school’s Nativity play: great things can come from Nativity performances! I showed pictures to David and Teresa and they ‘oooo’d and ‘ahhh’d’ appropriately. Soon, though the time had come for me to get back to my room to prepare for a Zoom call to the UK, and David and Teresa had to pack ready to leave, so we posed for our annual photograph and then returned to our respective rooms, having hugged goodbye in the car park.

My Zoom call was due to be with the banqueting team at London’s prestigious Cafe Royal, to go through the format of a dinner event I am performing there on December 22. There wasn’t a desk as such in my room, so I removed the light and little vase of flowers from the bedside table and moved it so that it was in front of the small armchair in the corner, which gave a plain view of the wall behind, avoiding seeing my suitcase, overflowing with clothes and my unmade bed.

At exactly 10 (3pm London time) the call connected, and my contact Kerry popped up, she was in a tiny office and behind her the entire team, including chef, maître d’ and banqueting manager were squeezed in. We went over the format of the evening during which I will be performing between the courses of a fine dinner, and just as I thought we were ready to wrap up, Kerry said ‘could you do a bit of what you do now? None of us know what it is.’ And so, I suddenly was performing a completely unprepared and unexpected audition from my little room in Fairville, Pennsylvania. I chose the beginning of Stave 2, the arrival of the Ghost of Christmas Past, and fortunately my efforts were greeted with smiles and laughter, which was good, and when I finished, I even got a little round of applause. I promised that I would send a link to my video of the show too, to give them a better idea as to what is involved.

With the call over I emailed Kerry with the video link and also sent it to David and Teresa who were keen to see my efforts, and then I began to make preparations for the day ahead which would involve two more shows at Winterthur. I probably wouldn’t have time to return to the Inn between commitments, so I made sure that I had everything that I would need.

Back at Winterthur the old store was deserted, and I went into the auditorium to check that everything on the stage was correctly placed for the first show, and also retrieved my costume from the night before, which I had left airing on the coat check rack at the back of the hall. Lois arrived and we went through the schedule of the day, and then I retired to change, while she sorted out her volunteers who would be greeting the audience.

At 1 o’clock I made my way to the hall, and asked Lois to place a mask on the side of the stage for me, so that if I got collared by various audience members after the show again, at least I could have some protection.

The first show went very well, and the audience was full of a lot of people who had seen the performance often, meaning we all had great fun together. It felt more relaxed than the evening before as I had learned my lesson about not trying too hard. It was a good show.

When the question and answers were done, and I had posed for a couple of (masked) pictures, I went back to my office and changed, and when I was sure that the hall was empty, I hung my costume on the rack again. I had a couple of hours to kill now, and Lois bought me a salad from the cafeteria, which was much needed. When I had finished eating, I went back to the stage and sat in the big red armchair on the set, it being the most comfortable place to rest.

The evening’s timetable was slightly different from the previous two, in that the show was reserved for members of Winterthur, and they had been promised a special pre-show event, during which there would be canapes and wine served, and at which I would make an appearance. It had been decided that it would be a good idea to do the question-and-answer session then, so I needed to be in costume at 4.45. The reception was in the cafeteria and when I came in there were plenty of people already eating, but they were spread widely throughout the large room, which would make being heard difficult. I took up a position as centrally as I could, and opened the floor to questions, which flowed freely. One of the last inquiries was ‘Do you think that Charles Dickens would be proud of you?’ I had to pause to consider this, because that is quite a thought, but eventually I answered, ‘I think that he would be, yes, because I am following his theatrical dream’. I followed up by saying that ‘However, if you should see a lightning bolt strike me down on the stage, you will know I was wrong!’

It was now 5.15 and the show was due to start at 6, so I wound the session up and returned to the office, or ‘the bunker’ as Lois christened it, to relax and prepare. I was aware that I had over-used my voice in the cafeteria, so I drank a lot of water, sucked some Fisherman’s Friends lozenges, and did a few deep breathing exercises.

At 6 I stood at the back of the hall, which was almost full, and after Lois had made her introductory remarks, I took to the stage for the final time on this visit. The opening of the show was fairly uneventful, and I was keeping up a good pace, and then I noticed that I had company on stage – a little beetle, possibly a Shield Bug judging by its shape, was strolling around, apparently checking out what I was doing: I had joked about the lightning bolt coming from Charles Dickens, but perhaps he had come to check on me in the form of a bug! I became transfixed by my new companion, and whenever I could I checked his whereabouts so as not to tread on him (if it were a reincarnation of my great great grandfather, it would be a rather ignominious end to be squashed under a decsendant’s boot). As Fezziwig’s wild dance approached, the beetle crawled to the edge of the stage, as if he realised that he was in mortal danger, and then when the dance was over, he came back to centre again.

On the play went, and I managed to avoid him, until eventually he disappeared. At moments when I was on my knees, I checked the pattern in the rug to make sure I hadn’t squished him but there was no sign. Maybe he had deemed himself satisfied with my efforts and taken flight. My very own Sprit of Christmas standing by me!

Anyway! The show itself went very well and came to a great end with a loud and long standing ovation. Having done the Q&A preshow there was no need to do another one now, but I was aware of Lois standing at the edge of the stage clutching a book and when the audience sat down, she thanked Dennis for his efforts in the sound box (every cue had worked perfectly at every show), and then thanked me for coming and presented me with a Winterthur gift book, which had been signed by many of the staff as well as lots of audience members.

I felt very moved by the kind gesture and left the stage to yet more applause.

The first thing I did on returning to the dressing room was to check the bottom of my shoe, and, to mis-quote my show, there was ‘Noooooo Bug!’

Now I had to pack up and make sure that I had everything, as I would be moving on the next day, so I took quite a time hanging costumes collecting cufflinks and the watch, making sure I had my signing pen, and everything else. When I emerged, there was a young man waiting for me clutching a very early edition of A Christmas Carol, maybe a second, third or fourth edition. Unfortunately, I am not an expert, so I couldn’t verify exactly which it was, but I gave him some suggestions as to how to find out. It was such a privilege to hold the little edition, and although it was not in pristine condition, the quality of the coloured illustrations was extraordinary. The books were originally printed with black and white engravings of John Leech’s illustrations, and each of those was then hand tinted with watercolour, meaning that no two early editions can ever be exactly alike. The richness of the colour in this edition was amazing, particularly the Ghost of Christmas Present whose robes were an incredibly deep and rich emerald green. To hold an edition from 1843 or 1844 is always a very special connection to the origins of the story.

It was time to leave, and Lois had invited me to share dinner with her family, so I followed her car into a neighbourhood in the suburbs of Wilmingtom, where her husband and two sons were waiting. The two boys were fascintaed to know about England and pressed me with a never-ending series of probing questions., some more difficult to answer than others: ‘What is your favourite British word?’, for example. It was a lovely, relaxing way to come down from the two days of performances at Winterthur, and we ate Barbeque in rolls, and salads, followed by cheesecake and cookies, and we talked and laughed. Soon it was time to leave, and after having a picture with the boys in front of the Christmas tree, and saying goodbye and thank you to Lois, I drove back to the Fairville Inn, where I hung my shirts from the day’s performances in the cupboard to air, and then retired for the night.

Friday morning promises to be quite busy, with a radio interview at 9.30, followed by my Covid test at 10 – fingers crossed, one and all!

A Quiet Day

Tags

A Christmas Carol, A Christmas Carol film, Byers'Choice, Panera Bread, The Great Gatsby

Wednesday was another travel day, and to be honest for the most part it wasn’t a particularly thrilling one! I was reversing the journey that I had taken two days previously, for I was returning to New England to continue my tour in New Hampshire.

I took a leisurely breakfast and then, having caught up with some emails and admin, watched TV for a while. I had decided not to leave until after 10am to give the commuter traffic into New York time to clear. The weather outside looked beautiful, with a bright sun in a clear sky, it was to be a perfect day for driving.

I packed up my bags and at 10 on the dot I checked out and loaded up my car. I set the SatNav for the good old Beechwood Hotel in Worcester, so that I could retrieve my two costume shirts, and then started North. The Great Gatsby was still playing through the audio system, and as I rose up onto the Throgs Neck Bridge to leave the Island, and looked at the skyline of Manhattan to my left, a quote from the book which had appealed to me the day before came back: ‘The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.’ When I crossed the bridge two days before the skyscrapers had been hazy, backlit by a setting sun, but now they were clear, sharp and starkly defined. It seemed impossible that there was an inch of space left on Manhattan and quite how that little strip of land can support the sheer weight of concrete, steel, and glass is beyond my unscientific mind!

The traffic was pretty clear, and as I left New York City behind me the driving seemed to become less aggressive and intimidating. Gatsby came to its conclusion, and I instead started listening to the soundtrack of The Blues Brothers, which is an excellent soundtrack for a road trip.

After a couple of hours on the road I found a Panera Bread, at Berlin CT, and had a lovely, leisurely apple salad and a coffee, before driving on towards Worcester. When I was driving in Massachusetts a few days before I had noticed that all of the road intersections have been renumbered, so every exit has not only the official green sign informing the driver what junction this is and where it leads to, but also a smaller yellow one reading ‘Old Junction…’ and then whatever the number may have been. I had first assumed that this change in numbering had only been on the route between Worcester and Sutton and was the result of some new construction, but it seems to be a state-wide phenomenon. You may suppose that there may be some logical reason behind it, that all of the new junction numbers would be two different from the old ones, for example, but no: sometimes new junction 13 was old junction 10, whereas further along the road the new junction 25 was the old junction 11 – very curious, and I wonder how long the signs will need to stay until everyone is confident with the new system.

I pulled up at The Beechwood and in just a few minutes had been handed the bag with my two shirts, so was able to continue my journey on towards Nashua, New Hampshire. There is something beautifully familiar, and yet confusing, about driving to New Hampshire, as so many of the town names come from old England: signs for Bolton, Southampton, Dunstable, Manchester, Billarica, Tewsksbury and many others paint a geographically challenged map of Britain.

Soon I had arrived at my hotel and as I walked from the car to the lobby with no coat on, I recalled that last time I was here in 2019 it was snowing heavily and at that time I was glad of my all-wheel drive car, whereas this year it has so far seemed to be a rather redundant luxury.

Jody Gage, my event sponsor in Nashua, had reserved a very nice hotel room for me, a mini suite with a separate bedroom, which felt very grand.

I didn’t have long in the hotel, as I had been invited to supper at the house of an old friend, Sandy Belknap, who has worked on my Nashua appearances for many years and who also worked with Bob Byers and me last year to promote my film version of A Christmas Carol.

Although it was relatively early, it was dark as I drove to Sandy’s neighbourhood and colourful Christmas lights twinkled on houses and in gardens. It was a lovely evening, and so nice not to be in a crowded restaurant or bar, not knowing who is close by.

Sandy rustled up an extremely flavoursome chicken dish and salad, followed by some homemade chocolate chip cookies, and it was a very pleasant, relaxing evening.

Back at the hotel it was still early, but as my body clock is still playing tricks with me and I am continually waking at silly hours of the morning (although it is gradually getting better), I was ready for sleep and the episode of whatever detective drama I had started to watch played on unseen

Thursday promises to be a busier day!

Where is Kazakhstan?

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Formula One, House of Games, Mid Continent Public Library, Panera Bread, Richard Osman, The Signalman

Friday would see me back on stage performing once more, which would be good. However the only show of the day was not until 7pm so I had plenty of time to fill. As soon as I woke I could hear that the gentle, warm, almost late summer weather that I have enjoyed throughout the trip had changed. Outside my window I could hear the wind howling and moaning. In a way this was quite apt as my show was to be The Signalman in which Dickens describes the wind making ‘a wild harp’ of the telegraph wires. In my case it was an American flag flying just outside my room that was creating the morning soundtrack as it was tugged against its fixings and rattled and clanged in the gale.

I made myself my morning coffee and sat up in bed writing my blog post, as well as some material for a potential new book about my theatrical career and life on tour, The passage I was working on was of my earliest childhood memories of Christmas so I spent plenty of time wallowing in happy nostalgia!

I wrote until 7 and then went down to the lobby for Breakfast .The Hampton Inn at Liberty has always served one of the most impressive buffet-style breakfasts that I encounter anywhere on tour, and in particular the oatmeal and waffles. After a glass of orange juice I plumped for waffles, purely for tradition and old time’s sake and I was not disappointed. They were delicious.

After grabbing an extra coffee I returned to room, stopping at the front desk to collect a packet of book plates that Kimberly has asked me to sign for the library service, Although Mid Continent have ordered 200 copies of Dickens and Staplehurst, they were not due to arrive during my visit, so the signed bookplates could give people signed copies. There were 200 signatures to do, so I sat at the little desk in the room and began signing. It is amazing how much more quickly one can sign when you don’t have to pick up a book, open it to the correct page, sign, close the book and place it on the ‘done pile’, before reaching for the next book, opening it to the required page…etc etc. I got myself into a good rhythm and worked away until all 200 signatures were complete. Having finished I arranged the sheets of bookplates and a copy of the book for a photograph which the Olympian Publishers may like on their social media feed, and then packed everything away.

My timing was perfect, for I had a few minutes to spare before the first practice session from the Brazilian Grand Prix was being shown live on ESPN, so I settled onto the bed and spent a happy hour watching Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen battle it out on one of the classic, historic race tracks.

When practice finished, I did a little more writing and then decided to spend an hour rehearsing The Signalman and the moaning wind and the flapping flag outside my window gave the run through a much more authentic feel than usual. The Signalman is quite a short presentation, compared to something like A Christmas Carol, the script itself only running at 30 minutes (although my introductory remarks make the actual show a more meaningful length), so the rehearsal run didn’t take up too much time. Once I had finished I picked up the script as there were a few little phrases that I wanted to check on and tweak a little, and when I had practised those it was time for lunch. Once again I walked down to Panera Bread where this time I ordered a Ten Vegetable Soup served in bread bowl. Before committing myself I asked the server if the Ten Vegetable Soup was a broth (on the day of a performance I wanted to avoid anything made with dairy) and I got the helpful reply that ‘It is soup made with vegetables’ Well with that sense of clarity I went ahead with my order! When the soup came it was indeed a broth and it was indeed made with vegetables, I didn’t count them but I imagine that there may have been 10. It was delicious and warming and nourishing.

I had managed my time well for when I got back to my room the official qualifying session from Brazil was just beginning so I resumed my former spectating position and watched as Hamilton beat his rival to pole position. Sadly I will not be able to watch the rest of the weekend’s action due to my shows, but being able to catch Friday’s events was a nice bonus for me.

After Qualifying had finished and ESPN had returned to football I switched off the TV and did another complete run through of The Signalman, just to make sure that those little tweaks had settled into my mind, and then satisfied with how things were I settled down to relax and perhaps nap (my body clock still being all over the place and waking me at silly hours of the morning).

At some point in the afternoon I saw that my brother Ian was online, and as we chatted he mentioned that my favourite round of my favourite TV quiz had been on in the UK the day before. The show is called Richard Osman’s House of Games, and the round in question is ‘Where is Kazakhstan’ in which celebrity contestants are shown a blank map of an area of the World and have to pinpoint various places, however they are not given the names of the places but a question – so they not only have to know the answer to the question but also the location on the map. So, the round that Ian told me about was based on the USA and he thought that I may like to try and play. These were the questions:

Q1. The city in which the title character sits on a bench in Forest Gump.

Q2. Mount Elbert, the highest point in the Rocky Mountains.

Q3. Where is Yale University.

Q4. The major city that completes the title in the 1944 Judy Garland musical ‘Meet me in….’

My answers were as follows:

1: Savannah, Georgia

2: Probably somewhere near Colorado

3: Upstate New York

4: St Louis in Missouri, not far from where I am currently based.

I found a blank map online and placed four points on it as my answer:

I did pretty well, but frustratingly the one I got wrong was Missouri!

Anyway, that passed a pleasant amount of time and it was nice to chat with Ian.

The rest of the afternoon was spent somewhat lazily watching the end of Back to the Future II and the beginning of Back to the Futre III until it was time to prepare for the evening’s show. At 5.30 I showered to re-energise myself and just before 6 I had a call from the front desk telling me that Kimberly was waiting for me.

The evening’s shows was in the Woodneath branch of the MCPL which is only a five minute drive. I have performed at the branch on many occasions and was welcomed back by the staff there like an old friend. For The Signalman I was performing in the Community Room, a large self contained space away from them main Library and at one end a stage had been erected. Kimberly had sourced some material to create the idea of a set, including hand held oil lantern, which would be useful during the Signalman’s description of his repeated hauntings. There was a great sense of excitement and anticipation in the Library as my appearance represented the first in person large event staged by the programming team. In the same way as at the church in Burlington, Friday evening’s show marked a move forward for the organisation and a gradual easing of restrictions.

Not only was I to perform for a live audience, but the event was also being streamed online so that anyone not comfortable sitting with a crowd could watch from home. As well as a normal sound check therefore I had to spend a little time with the filming crew making sure their camera’s (actually i-phones on tripods) were in the correct place and would capture all of the presentation.

The audience started arriving early, as they always do in the KC area and soon the hall was filling up nicely, there were many old friends in the group but I tried to maintain a good distance and kept my mask on until the last moment.

At 7 o’clock the show started and I prefaced The Signalman with an introduction based on the new book (much more accurate than my old intro used to be!) and then launched in to ‘Halloa Below There!’ The Signalman is much more intense and dramatic than A Christmas Carol and there aren’t many laughs to help it along, but the audience were silent during the most dramatic patches and there was suitably stunned gasp when I finished up with the revelation of Dickens’s death being exactly 5 years after Staplehurst.

The show over we then moved onto the Q&A section and after I made a few more remarks about how I actually came to write the book, we opened the floor. There were good questions: How long does it take me to learn a new script, at what age did I first know I wanted to act, what novels would be good to start reading for someone returning to the works of Dickens, does the family feel a duty to preserve Dickens’ legacy, do I perform other works, non Dickensian? It was a fun session, but soon it was time to wind up. I took another bow, replaced my mask and the audience disappeared into the night.

When I had changed Kimberly took me to a nearby grill (a lot of restaurants are closing at 9pm, so choice was a little limited) and I ordered a burger with, bizarrely a fried egg on top – I have never had t make a decision between sunnyside up or over-hard at 9pm before, but that’s what was my final decision of Friday 12 November 2021!

Signing For Dallas

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Dallas, Dickens and Staplehurst, Southfork Ranch

Welcome to another of my retrospective Blog posts in which we go back to 2001.

As I sat at Byers’ Choice this week signing copies of my new book my mind went back many years to another similar time, albeit on a rather larger scale.

In the early years of touring my former agent, Caroline Jackson, mainly sold my show as a dinner event, in which I would perform each chapter of A Christmas Carol between course of a fine festive feast. This format originated in a book published by my parents and my father’s cousin Cedric. Caroline, in her entrepreneurial way, had published am American edition of that little book and designed it to resemble the first edition of A Christmas Carol as published by Dickens in 1843. The volume not only contained the script for the readings but also recipes, serving ideas, traditions and games, all of which could be used to create a Christmas party with a difference.

Many of the venues at that time were hotels as Caroline had signed an agreement with The Historic Hotels of America register, and I got to visit and perform in some sumptuous surroundings. But in 2001 she pulled off a real coup by signing a contract with a large software company based in Dallas, Texas, for me to be the entertainment at their annual staff Christmas party. Not only would I be performing during dinner but every guest would be presented with a signed copy of Christmas With Dickens as a token of their employer’s generosity.

This was in Texas, Things are big in Texas. There would be 2,000 guests at the dinner.

In order to get all 2,000 copies of the book signed Caroline booked a motel room in Arlington, Virginia, close to where she lived, and for two or three days I sat in that small space scrawling ‘Gerald Charles Dickens’ over and over again. Sometimes it was GrldChsD, sometimes Charlesgeraldcharlesdickens, sometimes it bore no form at all! Caroline made occasional appearances to remove completed boxes of books away, only to replace them with others – it seemed to take forever.

The event in Dallas came somewhere towards the end of the trip so after I had signed the books I was on the road as usual but always hovering in the background was the prospect of performing for 2000 people. Eventually the great day arrived and before we went to the hotel where the dinner was to be held, the senior board members of the company hosted an exclusive meet and greet session over lunch – at Southfork Ranch! The CEO gave a speech during which he welcomed me in a typically Texan style and presented me with a souvenir Stetson. At he ended his remarks he signed off with a flourish declaring ‘Happy Yule Y’all!; I was sure that he was trying this line out on us, and having received a loud laugh I assumed that it would make a re-appearance at the evening’s event.

After lunch we drove to the hotel and for the first time I saw what 2000 seats looked like, The tables were already set with linen, silver and crystal and seemed to spread as far as the eye could see. In pride of place at every setting lay a signed copy of Christmas With Dickens. It was with a sigh of relief that I thought that I wouldn’t have to do a signing session that night – the hours in the Arlington motel would pay off now, I could just do the show and leave.

The huge ballroom had a stage along one wall, where I would be performing, and I climbed up to try and get an idea of what I would be dealing with.

The room was very wide but not very deep (I suppose I was going to be a landscape artiste, not a portrait one) and I was very aware that those people sitting at the far extremities of the room would struggle to see me. The organisers had thought of this and had mounted two huge screens on each side of the stage and a video camera immediately in front of me. The audio visual equipment were handled by a professional company and we spent a long time doing effective sound checks to make sure nothing was left to chance. When all the preparations were complete I went up to my room until it was time for dinner.

When I returned the ballroom was packed and noisy. Everyone was dressed in ridiculously expensive suits and dresses. Diamonds glistened, huge Rolex watches were conspicuously displayed. Hair, perfume, aftershave and make-up were perfect and cosmetic surgery of varying degrees was on bountiful display. Quite how everyone was called to order I don’t remember, but everyone dutifully took their seats and were welcomed by the CEO who sure enough wished everyone ‘Happy Yule Ya’ll’ and then he handed over to me to begin my first performance. It was a fascinating exercise for me, at first I wanted to be as inclusive as I could, so was making a real effort to perform to the very far extremities of the room, but in doing this I glanced the images of myself on the big screens and realised that the camera was only getting my profile and any facial expressions that I was making were completely lost. Therefore when I returned for the second and subsequent chapters I began to concentrate on the camera in front of me, and from being a HUGE performance it became a very small, intimate one. Ignoring 70% of the room seemed counter intuitive to me, but in doing so I was giving those folk a much more complete show as they watched the screens.

Much wine and many cocktails were consumed that night and by the time I got to Tiny Tim’s death scene there was much emotion in the room, and some high spirited, or highly spirited, revellers stood at the back and gently waved their cigarette lighters in the air as if they were at a rock concert. It was very late, maybe midnight, when the dinner finally ended and I took the applause. I had finished for the night and was looking forward to getting back to the solitude of my room, until the CEO returned to the stage and announced ‘You will see that you all have a signed copy of A Christmas Carol on your table and I am sure that if you want them personalised Gerald Charles will be happy to facilitate that’. And so the night was extended as a large proportion of the group gathered around me asking for books to be inscribed to ‘Jason J Jackson III’ or ‘Mary Lou’ or ‘Grandma and Gramps’. Some wanted me to write passionate declarations of love for a fiancé or significant other, whilst others managed to grab whole piles of apparently ignored, forgotten and abandoned books and wanted me to sign them all. It was a very very long night.

So, signing 150 copies of Dickens and Staplehurst during a quiet morning at Byers’ Choice wasn’t really a chore!

The End of the Tour: Happy Birthday and a Lamb Pasanda

Tags

A Christmas Carol, A Christmas Carol film, Byers' Choice, Henley-on-Thames, Liverpool, Orgin8 Photography, St George's Hall, The River Mersey, The Spice Merchant, The Wirall, Thornton Hall Hotel and Spa

My extensive 2020 tour of three venues continued and concluded over this weekend as the country was plunged ever deeper into more complicated layers of lockdown.

On Saturday morning I loaded my car with the various pieces of my set (carefully designed to fit into the rear of a Renault Kadjar) and set a course for The Wirral – the beautiful peninsula to the south of the River Mersey. In past years I have regularly performed in the city of Liverpool, specifically at The St George’s Hall where Charles himself gave readings, but harsh restrictions in the city led to a nervousness of many venues to stage events meaning that Lynne Hamilton, the producer who promotes my shows in this region, had to search for alternative sites. With time rapidly running out to organise and market a show Lynne finally came to an arrangement with the Thornton Hall Hotel and Spa, and the date was to be the 19th December, the anniversary of the day that A Christmas Carol had been published in 1843. It seemed as if the stars were truly aligning.

My SatNav set I made the journey north on roads which were very much quieter than in more more normal years of yore. The hotel sits on the outskirts of the very pretty village of Thornton Hough which was originally built as a model village by a mill owner in 1866 before being developed by William Lever as a community for his executive staff working at the Sunlight Soap factory nearby.

Having checked in to the hotel I found my way to the Torintone Suite where I was due to perform. The large room had been set up with a stage at one end and tables and chairs very carefully placed to abide by the strict regulations. Members of staff, all masked, bustled about making final preparations. I introduced myself and received muffled greetings and welcomes in reply, before starting to arrange my furniture on the stage.

Every venue has its own particular challenges and I immediately realised what those would be here: over the stage hung two beautifully designed chandeliers, modern in design, made up of hundreds of glass droplets which dangled from little hooks…unfortunately with the raised stage they dangled to a lower height than 5’10 plus top hat – I was going to have to very carefully navigate my way around.

Soon Lynne arrived and we made the final preparations, the most complicated of which was to arrange my opening music and sound effect to play at the correct moment, for the CD unit was in a completely different room (actually a tiny stock cupboard behind the bar area), meaning that we had to set up a chain of people to allow Zak, one of the staff members, to hit the button bang on cue.

Soon the time for the audience to arrive was approaching so I made some final checks to the stage, before waiting for the start time of 2.30. Although the hotel had not staged any events like this for months they had worked out a system of taking bar orders and serving drinks which they carried out like clockwork. Soon everyone who wanted one had a drink and we were ready to start. Lynne got on the stage and welcomed everyone, who were revelling in a tiny moment of normality in turbulent times, and the show began.

I performed in two acts, and successfully managed to not destroy the chandeliers, the audience responded enthusiastically throughout. After I had finished I chatted to a few audience members (all masked up, of course and from a distance), and learned that many people had seen me perform in Liverpool before and had made the journey across the Mersey to catch up with me this year.

Between shows I went to my room and as soon as I switched on the TV I discovered that the Prime Minister was announcing even tighter restrictions on the country, and the jolly plans that had been put in place to temporarily allow a few household bubbles to meet over the Christmas season were henceforth rescinded. Inevitably Mr Johnson would now be slammed in the press as the PM who cancelled Christmas. It was all too depressing to watch, so I flicked the channel and was instantly rewarded with Alastair Sim skipping around his room in sheer undulated joy: once again A Christmas Carol had come to the rescue.

The evening show was at 7.30 so I had plenty of time to rest before the second audience, slightly larger than the first, took their seats, ordered their drinks and prepared themselves for a dose of escapism to treat the depressing malaise that has spread across the country.

Again the show was a success, and again I was able to chat and pose with some of the fans who had tracked me down!

When I returned to my room the day’s duties were not quite done for I had a Q&A call from America, which was arranged to celebrate the 177th anniversary of ‘The Ghostly Little Book.’ The video session had been arranged by Sandy Belknap, my good friend from Nashua, who has been doing a lot of marketing work to promote the film during the last few weeks. I was to be interviewed by Pam Byers, who would usually be organising and managing my American tour. The whole technical aspect was overseen by Scott, a colleague and friend of Sandy’s. We virtually forgathered in our virtual studio and ran through the running order that Sandy had drawn up and then with a couple of minutes to go Pam and I were left to our own devices, but with Sandy and Scott feeding chat messages to us, guiding the session.

Pam welcomed me and invited me to chat about the gestation and publication of A Christmas Carol, before opening the ‘floor’ to questions, which started to pour in. I was asked if I had a favourite copy of A Christmas Carol and I talked about the ‘reading’ version upon which I based my first show. The volume in question was first published in 1969 with a white cover (and that is the one that was read to me by an uncle – my first experience of the story), then re-published with a red cover (I am not sure when that was), and finally with a green cover which is the copy I have marked up with some of my own performance suggestions from 1993.

Another question was about Dickens development of characters and did he base any on real people, also the names, where did they come from? Of course Charles Dickens was an observer above all things, so his greatest characters were an amalgam of many character traits that he had noticed around him. As for the names, they were very important to him, having to capture the essence of the character in an instant.

I was delighted to notice a couple of questions pop up from ‘Martin at Orgin8 Photography’ Martin is a good friend who took the fantastic still photos for the film’s promotion. Martin’s questions focussed on the making of the film and the challenges I faced in creating it, which was a lovely avenue to go down, and useful in that the point of the session was to stimulate plenty of rentals. I assure you Martin was not a plant and his presence online was a complete, yet very happy, surprise’

Our thirty minutes ran its course, with Pam and I keeping up a dialogue, whilst watching for Sandy and Scott’s comments to guide us. It was a fun session and the whole thing can still be watched online and I will post the link at the end of this article.

I was still buzzing with adrenaline when we finally signed off, and it took quite a while to get to sleep. It had been a fun day and I think we honoured the anniversary of A Christmas Carol in a suitably celebratory fashion.

On the next day I left the hotel after a large breakfast and headed home to be with the family for a few brief hours before setting off to perform my final show of 2020. Once again this was a new venue to me and an unusual one at that! I had been booked by a friend of many years (I was going to say an old friend, but that is ungallant), who works as an event promoter. I had first met Paula when she worked at a theatre in the Oxfordshire riverside town of Henley and had booked me to perform Mr Dickens is Coming and The Signalman. We have kept in touch ever since and this year she contacted me to ask if I would perform A Christmas Carol as a dinner theatre show for her client: The Spice Merchant Indian restaurant. Dickens and an Indian restaurant do not seem to be a natural fit, but there was plenty of enthusiasm for the project and I was very happy to sign off my year in this way.

The drive to Henley from Abingdon is a short one, so I travelled in costume, admiring the beautiful Christmas lights which are adorning Britain more extravagantly this year than ever before. The room I would be performing in was long and narrow with tables on either side, so allowing for distancing I only had a single track to move up and down along.

The guests arrived and ordered their meals, before I performed chapters 1 and 2. As I performed so the waiters were carrying plates of food and drink, meaning that I had to be careful not to send a plate of Lamb Pasanda and Pilau flying with some theatrical and flamboyant gesture. I was however able to include some the waiters in the performance, one unwittingly becoming Dick Wilkins, Scrooge’s fellow clerk in Mr Fezziwig’s warehouse.

After a brief interval I returned to fisnish the story, taking care not to roam too far up the room this time as one table has an elderly and therefore vulnerable lady in their party and had asked Paula if I could not come quite so close to them during my show, a request which of course I honoured.

The show was another great success and after I had finished we spent a little time chatting in an informal Q&A until I packed up my things, said goodbye to Paula and drove away from my 2020 tour, which has involved 5 performances!

To view the online Q&A with Pam Byers visit my Facebook page: Dickens Shows

To watch my film of A Christmas Carol go to my website: http://www.geralddickens.com

The Season Begins (Virtually)

Tags

A Christmas Carol, A Christmas Carol film, Byers'Choice, Cooling Church, Cratchit, Ebenezer Scrooge, Mid Continent Public Library, Orbs, Sharnbrook Mill Theatre, Spirits, Vaillancourt Folk Art

On 7 December, 2020 my Christmas season as a performer finally begun. For the first time (if for now we discount the four days in October when I was filming), I actually had the opportunity to address an audience and hopefully entertain them! The stage was my kitchen, and the auditoria were various homes in and around the Kansas City area, as I took part in a Webinar (one of those words which, like the virus itself, has seeped into our lives and taken residency there unbidden and unnoticed) organised by my dear old friends at the Mid Continent Public Library System in Missouri. You may remember from previous blog posts that the library service had been instrumental in the making of my film and so had asked if I could attend a virtual session to take questions from their patrons, a request that I was happy to agree to even it meant waiting up until midnight, which would be 6pm in the central time zone in America.

As the evening passed by I tried to find a suitable spot in our kitchen to speak from, where the detritus of our everyday could be shuffled out of camera shot. There were certainly areas elsewhere in the house that would work, but I wanted to ensure that I didn’t wake the rest of the household who would be snoozing soundly at that hour. In the end, by moving a food mixer, a toaster, a bread bin, various pieces of fruit and a couple of cake tins, I could sit at our table with an empty counter over my shoulder. To make the scene more festive I gathered together 2 carollers from Byers’ Choice and some of the chalkware Santas from The Vaillancourts and set them behind me, carefully disguising the electrical outlets.

At 11.30pm I logged onto the Zoom link and watched a screensaver made up of various still promotional photographs from the film, and some pictures taken at branches of the library service over the years. Goodness, my beard is grey these days: Ho, ho, ho!

At midnight up popped Cheryl, and welcomed the audience, whom I could not see, to the event. She explained that I would be talking for around twenty minutes and then we would virtually open the virtual floor to questions and then handed over to me. I began by expressing my sorrow that I could not be in Kansas City this year but was delighted that I could chat through this forum. It was a heartfelt and good opening I thought but one which fell entirely on deaf ears! Suddenly lots of ‘Mr Dickens, we cant hear you’ ‘Is your microphone on?’ ‘Try clicking unmute’ interrupted my flow. Ahh, technology: the saviour and bane of 2020. After checking various settings on my laptop without success I switched to my phone and the evening was rescued.

My opening remarks concentrated on the gestation of the film, how the idea had developed, how I had chosen the locations and how Emily Walder, the amazing videographer and editor, had captured my dream for the project and collaborated in creating something that I am truly proud of.

After my twenty minutes were up we threw open the floor to questions, and there were some good ones:

‘Who is your favourite character to perform….’ Ah, an easy one to start, ‘….except Scrooge!’ Oh, not so easy then! I chose Bob Cratchit because there is a most important change of emotion during the course of the book as he moves from cheerful and resigned to truly heartbroken. The portrayal of Bob has to be genuine and realistic in comparison to some of the more grotesque caricatures elsewhere in the story, so he creates a greater challenge which I was able to explore more fully on film than I can on stage – the scene when he breaks down for his lost child is a moment that genuinely brought tears to my eyes the first time I watched the completed movie.

‘If you were to meet Charles Dickens what would you ask him?’ Wow! I think I would I would be so nervous I wouldn’t be able to say anything. However, having found my tongue, I would want to chat about theatre – his feelings as he performed, and how the voices and expressions of the characters come to him. I’d like to know if he imagined his literary characters in 3D (there is evidence that he would perform passages of dialogue to himself as he walked or in front of a mirror). I would like to know about the details of his life on the road: the ups and the downs. Basically, I would like to compare notes, but more than anything I would love to stand at the back of a hall and watch him perform.

‘What is your favourite passage in the novel’ (this from a teacher who has taught A Christmas Carol for many years). This is an interesting question because probably my favourite piece of writing doesn’t feature in my show, it is the wonderful passage when Scrooge is taken on his travels by the Ghost of Christmas Present:

‘And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed, or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse rank grass. Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.

`What place is this.’ asked Scrooge.

`A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth,’ returned the Spirit. `But they know me. See.’

A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their children and their children’s children, and another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song — it had been a very old song when he was a boy — and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again.

The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing on above the moor, sped — whither. Not to sea. To sea. To Scrooge’s horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.

Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds — born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the water — rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.

But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in itself.

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea — on, on — until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him.‘

It is such an evocative passage and one I wish I could capture it for the stage somehow.

‘What was your favourite filming location?’ All of the locations brought something to the film and each is special because they have all featured in various Dickens novels, but I think the best location was the churchyard at Cooling which we not only used for the various ‘grave’ scenes, but also as a background for the narrator to tell the story. Cooling is in the middle of the countryside, so we should have enjoyed perfect peace, but our time there was beset with a surprisingly large amount of traffic using the little street, as well as huge heavy diesel truck going to and from a nearby quarry. A nearby farm had a bird scarer which let off a loud retort every twenty minutes or so sending flocks of crows into the sky, and we seemed to be on the flightpath of Rochester airport as executive jets screamed overhead. The fact we got such wonderful material is a testament to our patience and the wonders of good editing. My favourite shot from Cooling is the very final shot of the film as I walk away into a sunset (actually a sunrise, but let’s not quibble about that), and a little green light flare, an orb if you will, hovers like one of the three spirits saying its farewell.

All too soon 1am came around and it was time to say my goodbyes and sign off. It had been a lovely evening and the opportunity to finally have contact (virtual) with my audience again was very special. Next week the Library will be hosting another session, but before then I will actually be back on stage, for on Saturday I will be performing A Christmas Carol at the Sharnbrook Mill Theatre in Bedfordshire. I can’t wait!

to View the film and see the locations visit my website: http://www.geralddickens.com/films.html

A Christmas Carol, the Weekly Report: Becoming Movie Moguls.

Tags

A Christmas Carol, A Christmas Carol 2020, A Christmas Carol film, Byers'Choice, Distribution, GCSE, Kent, Lockdown, Media, Nativity, Schools

A week has past since my film version of A Christmas Carol was released and the word is spreading across the globe!

In the fog and rain of an English winter my thoughts have gone back to those few days of gloriously bright sunshine and crisp autumn colours when Emily, Jordan and I worked as quickly as we could in order to complete our filming before further lockdown measures were imposed. Only this week the government have announced new restrictions across the country and the county of Kent, where we filmed, is in the highest tier meaning it would have been impossible for us to return. So what we achieved in those few days was quite remarkable.

As I watch the film now I can remember setting up the scenes as I had imagined them but also those ‘happy accidents’ when an idea suddenly came to us. The room at Eastgate House that we used as Scrooge’s bedroom was on the top floor and it was only as I looked out of the window to the street below that I began to wonder if we could film from two different angles so as to create the conversation between Ebenezer and the little boy who runs to fetch the prize turkey.

It is one of the most successful sequences in the film and I hope that we can re-film a couple of other scenes next year, using the same idea, (although as has been pointed out to me, I will have to make sure that my beard has EXACTLY the same degree of bushiness with no further grey in it!)

The original reason for making the film was so that venues that I would normally be visiting (led in particular by the Mid Continent Public Library) could have access to my performance even though I couldn’t tour this year. The film would be made available to any of our sponsors who wanted to distribute it to their patrons. But with the amount of work that we put in we wanted to ensure that the end product was available to as many people as possible, however not being film distributors we didn’t have a network in place to get it out there: it was then that Bob Byers had a brilliant idea – we use every one else’s networks! The plan that Bob proposed, and we adopted, was that an organisation could sign up with us to act as distributors of the film. They would have a specific access link to Vimeo which they would promote in their emails and general marketing, and for each rental made as a result the organisation would receive a commission: the more rentals, the higher the end payment and all for no capital outlay – it was a win, win plan for everyone!

Many of our established venues, both in America and in England, leapt at the idea and are even now encouraging their customer bases to celebrate Christmas with Gerald Dickens, but now other groups are seeing the benefits too, for example our local school has signed up so that local families can all watch together over the next few weeks in lieu of nativity plays and carol concerts. Festivals have come on board as have museums and libraries and city councils. As more people watch our ‘ghostly little film’ (to borrow Charles Dickens’ own words in his preface to the first edition), the reviews and comments have started to come in too:

‘Bravo! This is wonderful – what a treat!’

 ‘It’s strange to know a text so well, anticipate what is coming, and still feel delight when it arrives.’

What the Dickens!  Gerald Dickens IS Charles Dickens for my money!

Gerald Dickens brings his great-great-grandfather’s story to life with so much humour and heart and truth.   This is A Christmas Carol told as it should be told – by Mr Dickens himself.

A plum pudding of a show – stuffed full of delights – and served with authentic Dickensian relish.  5 stars!

‘Wowza!! Amazing!!’

‘It’s so cleverly put together. So we’ll observed. Dark where it needs to be dark, funny and uplifting where it should be, deeply emotional at all the places one expects.’

‘It’s a brilliant merging of a one-man stage performance with the luxuries that locations and sound effects allow.’

‘I LOVED IT !! FANTASTIC!!’

‘It is the story just as it should be – wonderfully ghostly but also fun, sad, happy and Christmassy.’

‘The Christmas Carol was awesome’

‘Well done – a great piece of work and a very entertaining hour of classic Christmas joy!’

‘Glorious – loved it loved it loved it!’

‘The film is wonderful! To see A Christmas Carol brought to life by Charles Dickens’ talented and delightful great-great-grandson has always been special, but to see it done against the backdrop of historic places Dickens himself knew brings the story to life in a unique and meaningful way that truly stirs the imagination.’

Looking ahead there is more and more media interest building as newspapers, radio, podcasts and TV all contact us daily for interviews. In England A Christmas Carol is a text on the GCSE exam syllabus and teachers are asking if they can use the film next year as a resource for their ongoing teaching. We are finding interest and enthusiasm from quarters that we hadn’t even considered

The film is taking on a life of its own and all in all I think that we as a team can be pretty pleased with our first week as movie moguls.

To watch the film visit my website: http://www.geralddickens.com/films.html

To enquire about being a distributor: gerald@geralddickens

Burlington, New Jersey

Tags

A Christmas Carol, A Christmas Carol film, Burlington NJ, Byers'Choice, New Jersey, Rich Tea Biscuits

I was surprised when Facebook furnished me with a memory from Burlington, New Jersey as I associate my visits there as being much later in my tour, but the truth is that the team at The Broad Street United Methodist Church have always been amazingly accommodating in fitting in with the rest of my schedule, meaning that events there have been staged at various different times.

Burlington is another venue that goes way back to the years before I started working with Byers’ Choice and in the first years I didn’t perform in the wonderful old church that has become as close a friend as Laura, Joe, Marica and the rest of the team there. I cant quite remember the circumstances but there was another church in town that happened to be staging a production of A Christmas Carol and had a magnificent set built, so we used that. I remember not quite understanding how the scenery and the building worked and so at one point when I exited I discovered that I couldn’t find my way back onto the stage again – the panic must have only been for an instant and the audience probably didn’t even notice, but to me in the backstage dark it felt like an age! I was more careful with how I used the set after that.

Burlington sits on the banks of the Delaware River and is closer to Philadelphia than any major city in New Jersey. Broad Street is, as the name suggests, very wide and has a tram service which rattles and clangs along its centre providing extra sound effects at the most inopportune, or if I am very lucky at the most opportune, moments. The Church was originally formed in 1770 (making this year their 250th anniversary) and construction of the present began in 1847. The new church was dedicated in 1854 and comprised a bright, airy and spacious sanctuary, complete with a balcony wrapping around three walls.

The altar and the organ are situated on different levels on a stepped dais and a gently curving rail separates the area from the wooden pews. All of this actually creates a wonderful stage area for me to play with, and the whole space is friendly and comfortable.

When I look back at my years performing in Burlington it is amazing how many times I have tried out something new in the show, which has found a permanent place in the production – I think that I must feel very safe in the environment and know that the audience are supportive, allowing me to take slight risks without fear.

And here I would like to say a word about the Church in the community: to me The Broad Street United Methodist Church is everything that a Church should be, there is never a feeling that a particular doctrine is being forced upon one, and there is never a feeling of resentment that an individual does not share those beliefs (I have definitely felt that in some Church communities that I have been involved with over the years). The main feeling at BSUMC is one of caring, nurturing and acceptance. My dressing room is in a small room beneath the stage and at Christmas time the shelves are stacked high with canned goods to distribute among the homeless and needy, meaning that the scene with the charity collector visiting Scrooge on Christmas Eve who points out that ‘many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.’ takes on a greater poignancy and meaning for me.

The team at Burlington are a cheerful and fun lot, lead by Laura Jaskot and her husband Joe. They are ably assisted by a large group of volunteers but I particularly want to mention Marcia and her late husband Bob. Marcia has always taken it upon herself to provide me with a cup of tea! Served in a bone china teapot, with a matching bone china cup and saucer the tea waits for me in my dressing room and again on the table when I begin my signing sessions after the performance has been concluded. At some point the team discovered that my favourite biscuit (or cookie), is a very plain Rich Tea, made in England by McVities. Somehow an American outlet which stocks Rich Teas was discovered and Marcia made sure that I felt truly at home.

Marcia’s husband Bob used to operate the sound system in the Church and would take great pride in making everything perfect – we would undertake long sound checks as he tweaked balances and levels until he was absolutely satisfied that all was right. It was a pleasure to work with him but a few years ago I arrived in Burlington to learn that Bob had passed away, so that year the show was performed in his honour: never has the usually comical line ‘No Bob’ held such weight of feeling. Marcia and I had a long hug that year as we remembered a true gentleman.

I had so hoped to be part of the BSUMC’s 250th anniversary celebrations this year, but fate has ruled otherwise but I have no doubt that by embracing technology the Church has continued its outreach programme and pulled the community closer together than it might otherwise have been.

I may not be on the stage this year, but the congregation and the wider audience will be able to see my new performance on film and hopefully next year we can all get together again to drink tea, eat Rich Tea biscuits and put the world to rights once more!

To view the film of A Christmas Carol visit: www,geralddickens.com/films.html

#AChristmasCarol2020

Counting Down to Thanksgiving and the launch of A Christmas Carol

Tags

A Christmas Carol, A Christmas Carol 2020, A Christmas Carol film, Ebenezer Scrooge, Emily Walder, Gerald Dickens, Ghosts of Christmas, Medway, Rochester

It seems to have been a long time coming and for much of this year it has felt that, between the pandemic and the various political situations across the globe, there has not been much to thank 2020 for. However as we begin the week of American Thanksgiving I can reflect of a year of opportunity and positives as I prepare to launch my first film: A Christmas Carol.

When last we left the saga I had wrapped filming in the ancient city of Rochester and left the entire project in the talented hands of Oscar-winning editor Emily Walder. During the days of filming in Cooling Churchyard, in Rochester Cathedral at The Six Poor Travellers House, in Eastgate House and around the streets of the ancient city, I had told Emily directly, and indirectly, what my vision for the film was, so when we said goodbye in a Rochester car park I was saying a temporary farewell to the project and leaving the next stage to her.

A few weeks passed and from America Bob Byers of the Byers’ Choice company, who not only book and manage my annual tours but also who had commissioned the film, got in touch to ask if there was anything he could see yet? I contacted Emily to ask if there was any way she could create a short trailer for the piece – a few scenes possibly, just to show how the end product may look. I hadn’t been prepared for the amazing production that duly arrived!

I had told Emily that I wanted the tone of the film to be dramatic, dark and sombre – capturing the innermost fears of old Ebenezer Scrooge and as soon as I watched the trailer I knew that she had succeeded. The music she had chosen was exciting with a racing heartbeat of a rhythm, and with lots of fast cutting together of various scenes from all of the locations it served up a tantalising glimpse as to how the film would look. As I watched I just smiled: Emily had created something very special indeed.

The trailer was circulated to all who needed to see it and the response was always the same: ‘Wow! I can’t wait to see the full film!’ Of course that is the point of a trailer but the superb reaction heaped the pressure on Emily to get the entire project completed as soon as possible, whilst juggling her other work which was beginning to make greater demands on her time.

Eventually after many emails back and forward she announced the there was a preview to be watched which she duly forwarded via WeTransfer, and which after an hour or so of gradual downloading I was able to watch. Actually I prevaricated for quite a while as I hate watching and listening to myself, but in the end I opened the laptop and began.

The film is everything that I had hoped it to be, Emily had been true to my wishes and used the specific shots that I had suggested, but also given it so much more. Her use of balancing the colour and the sound, of including carefully selected sound effects and music, of using special cinematic effects sparingly but very effectively turned the production from one man telling a story to a completely immersive film experience. As I watched I laughed and I cried, which considering that I am quite familiar with the book is quite surprising and a testament to her skills.

I am not arrogant or narrow minded enough to suggest that this film is a fully finished perfect piece of work, for there is plenty within its 70 minutes that I would like to either touch up or re-film but of course that is out of the question for now (although I would love to come back to the project next year for a second release!) However my main disappointment could be corrected and that was the opening sequence. Rather than using the dramatic music from the trailer Emily had gone with a melody that reminded me of the famous Hedwig Theme from the Harry Potter franchise, and somehow it didn’t bestow the menace and sense of doom that I wanted. The scene wasn’t helped by my voiceover narrative: ‘Marley was dead to begin with’ which I had recorded in slightly conversational, almost jovial, tones. I asked Emily if it was too late to make a change and she said she would indeed be able to do what I wanted, so I quickly set up my microphone and laptop and recorded a much darker version of ‘Marley was dead….’

Within a few hours Emily sent the new beginning and it was transformed: crows squawk and flutter among the silhouetted branches of a skeletal tree and as the (original) music plays. The viewer flies through the graveyard around ancient tombstones as my voice intones the opening lines, almost spitting out the final ‘Marley was as DEAD as a doornail!’ The screen fades to black and the title A Christmas Carol fills the void. We are off on our journey with Ebenezer Scrooge.

Frustratingly there are also a few moments in the film when we should have done better with continuity as well as ensuring that the numerous ‘Fire Escape’ and ‘Mind Your Head’ signs didn’t feature in the story, not to mention a stack of very modern chairs that I don’t know how we manage to miss on the day.

There are other moments which having seen the end result I would like to re-shoot from a point of view of my own performance, I would like to play about with characterisations a little more at certain moments, and use a few more of the cinematic tricks that we learned were possible as we filmed, but that is all for another time.

For now I think that with a crew of only three, all socially distancing in masks, and on a very short timescale and on a limited budget, Emily, Jordan and I have produced something that I am very very proud of!

On Thursday 26 November you can see for yourself for that is when the finished product goes live. To view the film go to the dedicated page on my website, Films (geralddickens.com) and click the button! Once you have paid for the rental and clicked to watch you will have access to the film for seven days, during which time you can view it as often as you like. From the launch date there is month until Christmas – so why not rent the piece as a gift for family, friends or for colleagues in lieu of a cancelled office party?

Yes 2020 has been a hard, difficult, and frightening year for us all but through it all rose the opportunity to make this film and that is something that I am truly thankful for!

http://www.geralddickens.com/films.html

#AChristmasCarol2020