It’s Been a Quiet 18 Months…..

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Byers'Choice, Califormia, Downton Abbey, Garrison Keeler, George Bush, George Washington, Highclere Catle, INS, King George III, Lake Wobegon, Lit&Phil, Llandrindod Wells Victorian Festival, Lockdown, Mid Continent Public Library, Nebraska, Omaha, Prairie Home Companion, Revelation Ashford, Rogers Gardens, The Word, Tony Blair, Vaillancourt Folk Art, Visa

‘Its been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my home town, out there on the edge of the prairie.’ So began Garrison Keillor’s ever brilliant weekly monologue, performed as part of his A Prairie Home Companion programme show which was broadcast weekly for nearly fifty years. Somehow I feel much the same way (albeit with a difference in timescale), about life over the last year and a half: ‘It’s been a quiet 18 months in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, my home town, out there on the edge of the Cotswolds…..’

My life as a performer has been cut from beneath me by the global pandemic and such performances as there have been have been spasmodic to say the least. Don’t get me wrong, for I have the loved time at home with Liz and the children, I have enjoyed becoming a runner, I have enjoyed being able to write and research, I have enjoyed our neighbourhood and a less frenetic way of life, but the natural rhythm of my professional life was interrupted, disturbed, fractured, meaning that my sense of self has been confused and disturbed, possibly changed forever.

But as Spring turned to Summer, and the heat became unbearable for the British nation, so the possibility of a conventional Christmas tour began to form, both in the UK and the USA. There are many hoops to jump through before it all becomes a reality but the venues are committed and the dates are in the diary, so this is a brief description of my year as it unfolds and hopefully you will be able to attend one of the events and welcome back Christmas!

Firstly the dates:

UK

27-28 August: The Llandrindod Wells Victorian Festival, Wales. Great Expectations. Dickens & Staplehurst.

23 October: The Victoria Hall, Sutton Scotney, Hampshire UK. Mr Dickens is Coming & Doctor Marigold

31 October: The Word, Jarrow, South Shields UK: Dickens & Staplehurst. The Signalman.

USA Tour

5-6 November: The Douglas County Historical Society. Omaha, Nebraska. A Christmas Carol

8-10 November: Rogers Gardens, Corona del Mar, California. A Christmas Carol

12-15 November: Mid Continent Public Library. Kansas City, Missouri. A Christmas Carol

UK

23 November: The Literary and Philosophical Society, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. A Christmas Carol

24 November: Revelation Arts Centre, Ashford, Kent. A Christmas Carol

USA Tour

27-28 November: Vaillancourt Folk Art, Sutton, Mass. A Christmas Carol

30 November: Historic Christmas Barn, Connecticut. A Christmas Carol

1-2 December: Fortin Gage, Nashua, New Hampshire. A Christmas Carol

3 December: St Anselm College, Manchester, New Hampshire. A Christmas Carol

4-5 December. Ventfort House, Lenox, Mass. A Christmas Carol

7 December. Country Cupboard, Lewisburg, PA. A Christmas Carol

8-9 December. Winterthur Museum, Winterthur DE. A Christmas Carol

10 December. Lewis Public Library, Lewis DE. A Christmas Carol

11-12 December. Byers’ Choice, Chalfont PA. A Christmas Carol

UK

15 December. Henley upon Thames. A Christmas Carol

17-18 December. St George’s Hall, Liverpool. A Christmas Carol

19 December. The Word, Jarrow, South Tyneside. A Christmas Carol

20-21 December. Highclere Castle, Highclere, Berkshire. A Chritsmas Carol

23 December. Leicester Guildhall, Leicester. A Christmas Carol

So, lets have a little amble through that lot: I have included the Victorian Festival in Llandrindod Wells not because it is part of my Christmas tour but because of what it represents. The Victorian Festival has been running since 1982 and each summer has brought the community in the elegant spa town in mid Wales together. Featuring a huge variety of events, such as parades, craft fairs, Victorian pageants, costume workshops, afternoon teas and various performances, the festival has reminded an increasingly modern and hectic world of a slower pace of life, a more genteel way.

I am not sure how many years I have been attending the festival, six or seven maybe but it feels an intrinsic part of my summer and last year was the poorer for not being able to attend. Fortunately out of the Covid ashes the committee have managed to resurrect the festival for 2021, albeit with numerous restrictions in place, and I am returning to perform Great Expectations. However the sad news is that due to dwindling financial assistance from the local council and a lack of enthusiasm from the younger generations it is all too probably that this year will mark the end of the festival. Crinolines and top hats will be packed away for the last time and the elegant green park and bandstand will echo to the town crier announcing each event no more. I hope it is not so, but the prognosis is not good. It therefore was very important to me to include Llandrindod into my diary and to give the best performance I possibly can to make my days there a huge celebration of all that has been achieved over 4 decades.

The Victoria Hall, in the village of Sutton Scotney is a venue that I stumbled on by accident, albeit thanks to Charles Dickens himself. My brother and I had attended a celebration of the birth of Dickens in Portsmouth one February. As we drove home we discovered that the A34 road was blocked with traffic (not an unusual occurrence), so we looked at a map (remember them?) and found a route across country that wound through some of the Hampshire and Berkshire villages, one of which was Sutton Scotney. At one end of the village stood an impressive hall and I thought that it may be worth contacting them with a view to doing a show there. I have often made such approaches and usually they come to nothing but on this occasion I scored a bullseye because my email found Eryl Holt an actress with a long and varied career (including a role in one of my favourite TV comedy sketch shows). Eryl immediately took to the idea of a one man performance and arranged for me to perform a double bill of The Signalman and Doctor Marigold. The audience wasn’t huge for that first foray, but I impressed enough for the word to go around the village meaning that when I returned the following year it was to a full house. I have returned to Sutton Scotney on a few occasions now and always enjoy my time in the Victoria Hall, so when I was beginning to build my tour it was a natural venue to include.

The Word in Jarrow is a wonderful library complex opened only a few years ago. The building is a magnificent white, circular, spiralling structure with multiple rooms and spaces all designed to promote a love of written and the spoken word and sits in the heart of the town where it is open and accessible to the entire community. I was due to perform at The Word in May 2020 and it was the first booking that I lost when the initial period of lockdown was introduced. I was delighted when South Tyneside Council made contact asking for not one but two dates during the autumn season. One to talk about my new book describing the circumstances of the Staplehurst rail crash, accompanied by a performance of The Signalman, and the other to perform A Christmas Carol in November. It is a long drive, Jarrow being in the far North East of the country, but it is a worthwhile one!

The first part of my American tour has a familiar feel to it with visits to Omaha and Kansas City where I will be the guest of my old friends at the Douglas County Historical Society and the Mid Continent Public Library Service once more. Those who follow my blog will know that the folks in both venues are old and close friends and it seems perfect that my USA tour should begin there. The two venues are separated by a quick jaunt to the west coast where I will perform beneath the blazing Californian sun in the open-air amphitheatre at Rogers Gardens once more

But, and it is a big ‘but’ the chances of being able to travel still hang in the balance, with the scales tipped rather unevenly at the moment. All of the dates are booked and all of the venues are ready to go, but confusion still reigns over international travel. As countries deal with their own domestic policies regarding the containment of Covid and the vaccinating of their population, each has their own policy as to travel to and from other nations. The need to keep the approach of the disease and its variants at bay balanced against the need to open up the economy again has led to governments coming up with their own policies.

For many years Britain and America has shared ‘a special relationship’, (although it has become more or less special depending on the respective administrations – George III/George Washington marking the nadir and maybe Blair/Bush the zenith), and it is one that I like to think that I have contributed a tiny amount to. Earlier this year it was proposed that the relationship would be preserved with the creation of a travel corridor between the two nations, a sort of vortex through which no virus could travel. Now, though, as reality hits it has become apparent that everyone has to protect their citizens and travel restrictions have been imposed.

In a usual year The Byers’ Choice company would create the tour and secure contracts from every venue, then a huge document has to be submitted to the Immigration and Nationalization Service (with the approval of the Actor’s Equity union who quite naturally wish to protect the rights of American performers.). The INS then approve the visa application at which point I have to apply to the US Embassy in London for an in person interview where an agent can pose a few more questions, should they feel the need, and then grant the visa proper. But this year the Embassy is closed for interviews, meaning it is impossible to get a visa approved, the only exceptions being emergency visits for urgent situations and humanitarian travel. Additionally, in order to enter the United States directly from the United Kingdom, I will need to be granted a National Interest Exception (NIE). So before I can commence my 2021 US tour I have to fulfil one of those criteria. The scary part is that I can not apply yet as anything over 60 days before travel is not seen as an emergency (I must say it makes me smile to think of my show in that way: ‘Quick! We need A Christmas Carol and we need it NOW – this is an urgent plea!, thank Heavens that AChristmasCarolMan is on call!’), and we are only permitted one application so we have to time and use it wisely.

As always Byers’ Choice have engaged an immigration attorney and they are monitoring the situation carefully, for it is more than likely that the situation will change over the summer months and if it does we need to be ready to jump at the earliest opportunity.

So, back to my dates, and if I get to America and if I am allowed back in to the UK again without needing to isolate for 2 weeks, I will then travel to the far North East again to the beautiful city of Newcastle where I will return to the elegant surroundings of the Lit&Phil (Literary and Philosophical Soicety) before making my way back down the country to the Revelation Arts Centre in Ashford where I was able to return to the stage in June. I am one of the centre’s ambassadors and am proud to be so, it is always a wonderful space to perform and with a great audience.

Back in the USA (as The Beatles never sung), the second and longer part of the tour takes me to very familiar terriorty, starting in Massachusetts with the Vaillancourts, and moving around New England and Pennsylvania, with a brief foray into Delaware, until I finish up with the Byers’ family in Chalfont PA.

Back to the UK and I return to the beautiful setting of St George’s Hall in Liverpool where Dickens himself performed and for a second year I get to perform again in the great hall of Highclere Castle, the star of Downton Abbey, before bringing my season to an end in the ancient Guildhall in the city of Leicester.

I will keep you posted with progress as the weeks pass, but in the short term it is time to dust off Great Expectations once again and to prepare for Llandrindod Wells later this month.

That’s the news from Abingdon where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking and all the children are above average.

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

The Four Sisters

Tags

Boz, Catherine Hogarth, Charles Dickens, George Hogarth, Lockdown, London, Sisters, Sketches, The Evening Chronicle, The Monthly Magazine

After the double-header ‘A Passage in the Life of Mr Watkins Tottle’, which was published in February 1835 there was a hiatus in the Sketches until June of the same year, almost as if Dickens were living in lockdown!  When they reappeared they were no longer in The Monthly Magazine, but now in The Evening Chronicle, the new sister publication to The Morning Chronicle to which Charles was already engaged as a political journalist.  Following the popularity of the Monthly Magazine sketches the editor of the Chronicle, one George Hogarth (who would soon become the young writer’s father in law), asked Dickens to write a series of sketches especially for the paper’s launch and so Boz introduced his readers to his ‘Scenes from London’, and specifically the cast of characters from ‘Our Parish’:

 

The Four Sisters

 

The row of houses in which the old lady and her troublesome neighbour reside, comprises, beyond all doubt, a greater number of characters within its circumscribed limits, than all the rest of the parish put together. As we cannot, consistently with our present plan, however, extend the number of our parochial sketches beyond six, it will be better perhaps, to select the most peculiar, and to introduce them at once without further preface.
The four Miss Willises, then, settled in our parish thirteen years ago. It is a melancholy reflection that the old adage, ‘time and tide wait for no man,’ applies with equal force to the fairer portion of the creation; and willingly would we conceal the fact, that even thirteen years ago the Miss Willises were far from juvenile. Our duty as faithful parochial chroniclers, however, is paramount to every other consideration, and we are bound to state, that thirteen years since, the authorities in matrimonial cases, considered the youngest Miss Willis in a very precarious state, while the eldest sister was positively given over, as being far beyond all human hope. Well, the Miss Willises took a lease of the house; it was fresh painted and papered from top to bottom: the paint inside was all wainscoted, the marble all cleaned, the old grates taken down, and register-stoves, you could see to dress by, put up; four trees were planted in the back garden, several small baskets of gravel sprinkled over the front one, vans of elegant furniture arrived, spring blinds were fitted to the windows, carpenters who had been employed in the various preparations, alterations, and repairs, made confidential statements to the different maid-servants in the row, relative to the magnificent scale on which the Miss Willises were commencing; the maid-servants told their ‘Missises,’ the Missises told their friends, and vague rumours were circulated throughout the parish, that No. 25, in Gordon-place, had been taken by four maiden ladies of immense property.
At last, the Miss Willises moved in; and then the ‘calling’ began. The house was the perfection of neatness—so were the four Miss Willises. Everything was formal, stiff, and cold—so were the four Miss Willises. Not a single chair of the whole set was ever seen out of its place—not a single Miss Willis of the whole four was ever seen out of hers. There they always sat, in the same places, doing precisely the same things at the same hour. The eldest Miss Willis used to knit, the second to draw, the two others to play duets on the piano. They seemed to have no separate existence, but to have made up their minds just to winter through life together. They were three long graces in drapery, with the addition, like a school-dinner, of another long grace afterwards—the three fates with another sister—the Siamese twins multiplied by two. The eldest Miss Willis grew bilious—the four Miss Willises grew bilious immediately. The eldest Miss Willis grew ill-tempered and religious—the four Miss Willises were ill-tempered and religious directly. Whatever the eldest did, the others did, and whatever anybody else did, they all disapproved of; and thus they vegetated—living in Polar harmony among themselves, and, as they sometimes went out, or saw company ‘in a quiet-way’ at home, occasionally icing the neighbours. Three years passed over in this way, when an unlooked for and extraordinary phenomenon occurred. The Miss Willises showed symptoms of summer, the frost gradually broke up; a complete thaw took place. Was it possible? one of the four Miss Willises was going to be married!
Now, where on earth the husband came from, by what feelings the poor man could have been actuated, or by what process of reasoning the four Miss Willises succeeded in persuading themselves that it was possible for a man to marry one of them, without marrying them all, are questions too profound for us to resolve: certain it is, however, that the visits of Mr. Robinson (a gentleman in a public office, with a good salary and a little property of his own, besides) were received—that the four Miss Willises were courted in due form by the said Mr Robinson—that the neighbours were perfectly frantic in their anxiety to discover which of the four Miss Willises was the fortunate fair, and that the difficulty they experienced in solving the problem was not at all lessened by the announcement of the eldest Miss Willis,—‘We are going to marry Mr. Robinson.’
It was very extraordinary. They were so completely identified, the one with the other, that the curiosity of the whole row—even of the old lady herself—was roused almost beyond endurance. The subject was discussed at every little card-table and tea-drinking. The old gentleman of silk-worm notoriety did not hesitate to express his decided opinion that Mr. Robinson was of Eastern descent, and contemplated marrying the whole family at once; and the row, generally, shook their heads with considerable gravity, and declared the business to be very mysterious. They hoped it might all end well;—it certainly had a very singular appearance, but still it would be uncharitable to express any opinion without good grounds to go upon, and certainly the Miss Willises were quite old enough to judge for themselves, and to be sure people ought to know their own business best, and so forth.
At last, one fine morning, at a quarter before eight o’clock, a.m., two glass-coaches drove up to the Miss Willises’ door, at which Mr. Robinson had arrived in a cab ten minutes before, dressed in a light-blue coat and double-milled kersey pantaloons, white neckerchief, pumps, and dress-gloves, his manner denoting, as appeared from the evidence of the housemaid at No. 23, who was sweeping the door-steps at the time, a considerable degree of nervous excitement. It was also hastily reported on the same testimony, that the cook who opened the door, wore a large white bow of unusual dimensions, in a much smarter head-dress than the regulation cap to which the Miss Willises invariably restricted the somewhat excursive tastes of female servants in general.
The intelligence spread rapidly from house to house. It was quite clear that the eventful morning had at length arrived; the whole row stationed themselves behind their first and second floor blinds, and waited the result in breathless expectation.
At last the Miss Willises’ door opened; the door of the first glass-coach did the same. Two gentlemen, and a pair of ladies to correspond—friends of the family, no doubt; up went the steps, bang went the door, off went the first class-coach, and up came the second.
The street door opened again; the excitement of the whole row increased—Mr. Robinson and the eldest Miss Willis. ‘I thought so,’ said the lady at No. 19; ‘I always said it was Miss Willis!’—‘Well, I never!’ ejaculated the young lady at No. 18 to the young lady at No. 17.—‘Did you ever, dear!’ responded the young lady at No. 17 to the young lady at No. 18. ‘It’s too ridiculous!’ exclaimed a spinster of an uncertain age, at No. 16, joining in the conversation. But who shall portray the astonishment of Gordon-place, when Mr. Robinson handed in all the Miss Willises, one after the other, and then squeezed himself into an acute angle of the glass-coach, which forthwith proceeded at a brisk pace, after the other glass-coach, which other glass-coach had itself proceeded, at a brisk pace, in the direction of the parish church! Who shall depict the perplexity of the clergyman, when all the Miss Willises knelt down at the communion-table, and repeated the responses incidental to the marriage service in an audible voice—or who shall describe the confusion which prevailed, when—even after the difficulties thus occasioned had been adjusted—all the Miss Willises went into hysterics at the conclusion of the ceremony, until the sacred edifice resounded with their united wailings!
As the four sisters and Mr. Robinson continued to occupy the same house after this memorable occasion, and as the married sister, whoever she was, never appeared in public without the other three, we are not quite clear that the neighbours ever would have discovered the real Mrs. Robinson, but for a circumstance of the most gratifying description, which will happen occasionally in the best-regulated families. Three quarter-days elapsed, and the row, on whom a new light appeared to have been bursting for some time, began to speak with a sort of implied confidence on the subject, and to wonder how Mrs. Robinson—the youngest Miss Willis that was—got on; and servants might be seen running up the steps, about nine or ten o’clock every morning, with ‘Missis’s compliments, and wishes to know how Mrs. Robinson finds herself this morning?’ And the answer always was, ‘Mrs. Robinson’s compliments, and she’s in very good spirits, and doesn’t find herself any worse.’ The piano was heard no longer, the knitting-needles were laid aside, drawing was neglected, and mantua-making and millinery, on the smallest scale imaginable, appeared to have become the favourite amusement of the whole family. The parlour wasn’t quite as tidy as it used to be, and if you called in the morning, you would see lying on a table, with an old newspaper carelessly thrown over them, two or three particularly small caps, rather larger than if they had been made for a moderate-sized doll, with a small piece of lace, in the shape of a horse-shoe, let in behind: or perhaps a white robe, not very large in circumference, but very much out of proportion in point of length, with a little tucker round the top, and a frill round the bottom; and once when we called, we saw a long white roller, with a kind of blue margin down each side, the probable use of which, we were at a loss to conjecture. Then we fancied that Dr. Dawson, the surgeon, &c., who displays a large lamp with a different colour in every pane of glass, at the corner of the row, began to be knocked up at night oftener than he used to be; and once we were very much alarmed by hearing a hackney-coach stop at Mrs. Robinson’s door, at half-past two o’clock in the morning, out of which there emerged a fat old woman, in a cloak and night-cap, with a bundle in one hand, and a pair of pattens in the other, who looked as if she had been suddenly knocked up out of bed for some very special purpose.
When we got up in the morning we saw that the knocker was tied up in an old white kid glove; and we, in our innocence (we were in a state of bachelorship then), wondered what on earth it all meant, until we heard the eldest Miss Willis, in propriâ personâ say, with great dignity, in answer to the next inquiry, ‘My compliments, and Mrs. Robinson’s doing as well as can be expected, and the little girl thrives wonderfully.’ And then, in common with the rest of the row, our curiosity was satisfied, and we began to wonder it had never occurred to us what the matter was, before.