Rochester – Jubilee or Dickens?

Tags

Charles Dickens, Festival, Jubilee 2022, Mystery of Edwin Drood, Pickwick Papers, Queen Victoria, Rochester, The Empty Chair, Wordsmithery

For as long as I have been performing, and indeed for a few years before that, the first weekend in June has meant attending the Rochester Summer Dickens Festival. The city of Rochester in Kent has long associations with Charles Dickens, as he lived nearby in both his childhood and at the end of his life. Many of his novels are set in Rochester, including his first (The Pickwick Papers) and last (The Mystery of Edwin Drood). The local residents and the council are proud of their connection with Dickens and treat him as their own, so each Summer the streets are given over to a celebration of his life and works with costumed characters mingling with the colourful crowds.

It has to be said that over the years the festival has become more of a huge party and carnival and less of a Dickens event but I have always been invited back to perform a variety of my shows, thereby maintaining a familial connection.

In 2020 and 2021 there were no festivals due to Covid, so 2022 would see all of the participants back on those ancient streets for the first time in 3 years, but this year we wouldn’t be attending a pure Dickens Festival for the first weekend in June coincided with a weekend of patriotic pride as the nation came together to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. A city such as Rochester would be amiss indeed if it didn’t honour the Monarch so the plan was to subsume the Dickens Festival into the Jubilee party.

As far as I was concerned the biggest change was that I would not be performing in the beautiful Guildhall museum, that has been my ‘home’ in recent years, but instead my show would be part of a fringe festival celebrating the spoken word, and which was organised by an organisation called Wordsmithery. From the sumptuous surroundings of the Guildhall I would be instead performing in a small tent in the shadow of the ancient castle

When I first attended the Dickens Festival there was a large programme of talks, lectures and performances, but this aspect has declined in recent years, but I need to congratulate Wordsmithery and the Medway Council for providing this opportunity. Over the two days there was a constant programme of events and I definitely think that this an opportunity to be encouraged and developed.

Saturday

Having driven to Kent on Friday night (after attending the most brilliant circus with Liz and the girls in the morning), I woke quite early on Saturday morning to be greeted with a grey windy day. I was glad of a little time for I wanted to run through my show, which was a brand new one. Usually my performances run for about 45 minutes to an hour, but to fit into the Wordsmithery timetable I had been asked to produced something that ran at 25 – 30 minutes. I had suggested ‘A Child’s Journey with Dickens’ or ‘The Signalman’ both of which are relatively short, and I had also flown the idea of creating something new, detailing the only meeting between Charles Dickens and Queen Victoria – that idea was leapt on, as it tied in so well with the Royal theme, and just a few weeks ago I had begun researching in an attempt to tell the story effectively.

I was assisted by a script that had been written many years ago by an actress in America who portrayed Victoria at various festivals and events. Anne Hamilton had worked closely with my father over a play called ‘The Queen and the Commoner’, and her script was a superb place to start. I also discovered various other accounts of the private audience – the Queen herself wrote about it in her journals, and of course Dickens wrote letters. There is a detailed account by Arthur Helps, the Clerk of the Privy Council who made the meeting possible, and Charles Dickens’ tour manager George Dolby published his memories of sharing a dinner with the author immediately after he had left Buckingham Palace.

The choice of the Queen script was made late in the day meaning that it would be impossible to write and learn it in the time available, but Barry from Wordsmithery assured me that most of the acts, including his own poetry recital, would be ‘on the book’ and it was fine to give the show as a reading.

My first writing of the new script concentrated purely on the meeting between the two great figures – covering their discussion of America (Dickens had just returned from his second tour), including a description of President Lincoln’s dream in which he had a premonition of his own death 10 days before the fateful night at Ford’s Theatre. They also spoke of the gulf between the rich and poor and the necessity of solving that issue; they discussed the price of beef and bread and the difficulty of finding good servants in England. The Queen presented Dickens with a copy of a book that she had written (which he had previously read and detested), and he offered to tell her the proposed plot of The Mystery of Edwin Drood – she declined the offer meaning that our only hope of unravelling Dickens’s final mystery was taken from us.

When I had finished the script I discovered that it was woefully short, running at around 15 minutes, so I decided to include some other incidents involving the two. In 1840 on the day of Victoria’s wedding to Albert the young Charles travelled to Windsor Castle with friends and there, beneath the window of the Royal bed chamber he flung himself to the ground professing his undying love for the Queen! This behaviour could be put down to high spirits and an excess of celebration, but in the days following he continued to write a series of letters telling all and sundry that his life was not worth living without Victoria, and that he hated his wife, his parents and his children. He wanted to run away and commit murder (the queen should have to sign the warrant for his death penalty and therefore his name would come before here eyes), or suicide. He theatrically and flamboyantly asked that his body be embalmed and placed on the arch outside Buckingham Palace when she resided in London or on the round tower at Windsor when she was there. These were the type of letters that a celebrity may rather have wished would not resurface!

In the end the script ran at half and hour and seemed quite fun.

Saturday morning in Rochester was grey and very windy. I parked my car and walked to the mote of Rochester Cathedral where Wordsmithery were based. There were two venues each in a tent – one was called The Raven (Dickens had a pet raven, Grip), and the other ‘The Empty Chair’ after the sketch made of Dickens’ study on the day of his death.

My first show was due to be at 11.30 in the smaller tent – The Raven, and as the start time came closer a steady stream of audience arrived and took every available seat with more standing outside peering through the flap. Barry announced me and I began by issuing a warning that if the wind kept up we may not be ‘in Kansas anymore!’ when we finished

The script worked very well and people laughed at appropriate moments and applauded at the end, which was a huge relief.

And now I had time to explore the rest of the festival – to celebrate the Jubilee in style, and I have to say I was somewhat disappointed. It seemed to me that the event had rather missed the target, for there were no large events to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s reign. In the castle grounds there has traditionally been a stage and it would have been wonderful to have brass bands playing, energetic dance shows, tribute bands and the like, but there was no arena or stage this year and the area looked rather forlorn. There was a large screen which was playing a programme of Royal-themed cookery programmes, but nothing more. In previous Dickens festivals the long High Street has been filled with entertainers, and there were a few stages along the way where theatre and dance schools would do shows, while jugglers, one-man bands and storytellers gathered crowds, laughing and cheering around them. There were no entertainers in the streets and no talks, lectures or exhibitions. It all seemed a bit flat.

Fortunately there were still plenty of costumed characters to engage with the public, and these volunteers go to great lengths to make wonderful costumes and are happy to pose for photographs and chat with the visitors to the town. The centrepiece of the Dickens Festival are the two great daily parades but this year there was only to be one, at 1pm. All of the costumed characters gathered at the end of the High Street behind the pipe band, and off we set. We waved and smiled and the crowds waved back, but still there was not the same buzz, the same excitement as in previous years. When we all arrived in the Castle Grounds the Mayor made a short speech and the parade dispersed. I stayed around for a while, making myself available for photo ops, but soon my day at the festival was done.

Knowing I had an early finish I had booked a round of golf at a nearby course and I was amazed to discover that I was about the only player on it! The wind was still strong which effected my game, but most of the errors I made were down to me being very out of practice rather than the prevailing weather conditions. It is so nice to play without being held up, or indeed feeling as if you are holding up the players behind, and it was a very relaxing evening.

Sunday

My show on Sunday would not be until 3pm, so my first actual commitment would be the parade at 1pm. However I got into costume and drove to Rochester quite early in the hope that the crowds would be out in force and that the party atmosphere that was gripping the country would make this a day to remember. Throughout the nation there would be street parties and the British would do what they do best! But in Rochester that flat feeling of the day before continued, perhaps even more so. There were not large crowds and even a number of the costumed characters were mumbling and grumbling. I took the opportunity to visit the Guildhall, wondering if they had a display of the many Royal connections with the City, but there wasn’t anything going on there. ‘My’ room was empty with chairs stacked at the sides. The staff had wondered whey I was not doing a show there and indeed a few confused potential audience members had arrived during the day before asking when I would be on.

As I walked back down the High Street it was almost empty and the thought suddenly came to me that if this was to be a real Jubilee celebration then the opportunity to have a HUGE street party taking in the entire length of the thoroughfare would have been amazing! What a spectacle that would have been!

Midday on Sunday 5 June: Jubilee Day

At 1 we paraded again, and waved and smiled and posed once more until we all went our different ways in the afternoon. My show was at 3, so I made my way to the ‘Empty Chair’ yurt at 2.30 to prepare. The wind was considerably less on the Sunday, so I didn’t have that to contend with, however the bells of the Cathedral were being loudly rung on one side whilst the Pipe band, with their rat-tat-tat-ing drums, gave an impromptu concert on the other. ‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more’

Again the yurt filled and again people stood outside peering in, and once more the new script was a success. It is an interesting subject and something that I will look more closely at in the future, I think.

The Empty Chair

And now my 2022 Festival was over. Jubilee Celebration or Dickens Festival? Sadly it was neither – it could and should have been a wonderful opportunity to wave the Union Flag high and proud, and I don’t think that anyone in the Dickensian community (I certainly wouldn’t) would have begrudged being gently eased aside to celebrate a remarkable time in our country’s history, but somehow, it just didn’t happen that way.

I drove away from Kent feeling a little sad.

Returning to Bury St Edmunds

Tags

Bury St Edmunds, Charles Dickens, Doctor Marigold, Guildhall, Pickwick Papers, The Trial

My busy week continued on Thursday when I drove across the country to the Suffolk town of Bury St Edmunds, and this had been a show which was a long time coming. About three years ago I first had an email from Clifford Hind asking me to appear in the town as part of the 2020 Bury St Edmunds Festival, and arrangements were made as to which show I should perform and what my fee would be. Charles Dickens had visited the town three times, and Cliff was keen to bring the Dickens name back after a gap of 159 years. February came and confirmatory emails were exchanged. March came and the spread of Covid began to take its grip. Inevitably I had another confirmatory email (among many others from various venues), this time with the news that the festival had been cancelled, but asking that we go ahead with the plan for the 2021 festival. A year passed and still Covid held sway, and the Bury St Edmunds Arts Festival was cancelled once more. It seemed more unlikely that the show would ever come off, but Cliff asked that we keep in touch and hopefully we could do something, sometime.

As Autumn of 21 passed it seemed as if things were improving and Cliff was back in touch asking of May 26, 2022 would work – the show wouldn’t be part of the Festival but would be a benefit for the Moyse’s Hall Museum, a 12th Century building housing an comprehensive collection of items telling the story of the town’s long and fascinating history. Cliff wanted me to perform The Trial from The Pickwick Papers and Doctor Marigold, as well as giving a brief talk about Charles’s connection with Bury St Edmunds. The latter request always fills me with terror, for the truth is that local historians will always have access to a great deal more information than me, and the danger is that I just trot out a few easily discoverable facts, promoting local ire. I would need to make sure that my research was sound and that I delivered it in my own way.

On the 16th May, shortly after my return from Kent and before I set off for Cheshire, another email from the Hind household came in, but this time it was from Diane, Cliffs wife with the very sad news that Cliff had unexpectedly died. Our show had occupied so much of his time and attention that Diane and the committee had made the decision to go ahead with the plan and stage the evening in his honour. Suddenly the pressure to do a good job mounted.

On the morning of 26 May I loaded the car with my reading desk and the various rustic paraphernalia for Marigold, as well as the costumes I would need. For some reason I was incredibly nervous about the day and had woken that morning with a pit-of-the-stomach sense of panic, which didn’t leave me all day. As I drove I had my script laid out on the passenger seat and made constant reference to it when I was stopped in traffic.

I arrived in Bury St Edmunds at 4pm, an hour before I was due at the Guildhall where I was to perform, so I parked in front of the famous Angel Hotel, which is where Charles stayed on each of his three visits. As with many hotels across the country, the Angel is proud of its association with Dickens and boasts a blue plaque on its ivy-covered façade, honouring him.

I went in and sat in the stylishly designed lobby and ordered a coffee. A nearby bookcase had copies of Dickens books, as well as a little figurine representing Mr Pickwick and I quietly raised my cup to him. Having finished my coffee I left the hotel and walked through the great stone arch into the abbey gardens where beautifully manicured lawns are dotted with various flint ruins. My home town of Abingdon has similar gardens, where our own Abbey once dominated the skyline, but Henry VIII changed the landscape of Britain forever with his dissolution act of the 1530s, and these beautiful buildings were destroyed. In the case of Abingdon we are not even left with even ruins, for not only was the gold, silver and other treasures taken but the stone itself was taken on barges down the River Thames to be used in the building of new and grand palaces.

Bury St Edmunds Abbey Ruins

After a peaceful and relaxing walk I returned to my car and drove to the Guildhall building, just a few steps away from The Angel, but quite a drive as I had to navigate through a narrow warren of one-way streets, before turning through an opened gate into a small driveway with a space reserved for me. I was greeted by Jill Badman who is not only the manager of The Guildhall but also lives in a charming cottage on site. As I took in my surroundings (beautifully tended gardens) Jill took me into the main building and showed me the room in which I was to perform, and an elegant space it was indeed. A small stage had been erected in front of the fireplace, which would be a perfect setting for my red reading desk.

The Guildhall has a definite history that dates back to 1279 and there are possible references to it over100 years before that, making it senior to my ‘other’ Guildhall in Leicester, which is a little scamp having been built in 1390!

Jill showed me my dressing room which was in the Tudor Kitchen complete with a huge fireplace complete with a pulley operated spit. When she was sure that I had all that I needed Jill left me to my own devices and I began to ferry my props, furniture and costume from my car to the hall. I erected my red screen behind the stage and set up the desk and while I was doing that Diane Hind arrived and introduced herself. I don’t know if Diane is a hugger, but I gave her a big hug and we agreed that Cliff would have been pleased that we were staging ‘his’ event and that we would all make it a memorable evening in his honour. Diane and her son were incredibly strong throughout the evening

As more volunteers and committee members began to arrive, I retreated to my kitchen (where I learned from an educational sign that the Tudors only ate strawberries if they have been cooked) and pondered as to how I would present the first act. Cliff had asked me to talk a bit about how The Pickwick Papers had been written (the novel having connections with Bury), and I was torn between academic and entertaining…I plumped for the latter. In my mind I ran through the various talks I had given about CD’s childhood, his seeing Gad’s Hill and his father’s motivational words about it. I would talk about the creation of Sketches by Boz, his meeting with artist Robert Seymour and the creation of Pickwick. All of those stories are delivered in a light-hearted way, and occasionally take liberties with strict fact (for example, I don’t think that Frederic Chapman really did cry out ‘Who the Dickens is Boz?’ when trying to engage the young author to provide text for Seymour’s illustrations), but they are all based in reality.

Having satisfied myself as to the shape of Act 1 I relaxed in the gardens as the audience gathered. At 7pm I waited at the back of the hall while Margaret Charlesworth introduced me. When I had walked to the stage to welcoming applause Margaret also took a moment to say a few words about Cliff before handing over the evening to me.

My cobbled together first act worked very well and I brought the whole story back to Bury St Edmunds by quoting two letters that Dickens had written during his reading tour of 1861. He had debuted a new reading based on David Copperfield in the city of Norwich and had complained that the audience there were ‘lumpish’, however two days later after another performance of the same piece he described a ‘very fine audience. I don’t think a word – not to say an idea – was lost!’ and that audience was from Bury St Edmunds. There is a natural geographic rivalry between Norfolk and Suffolk, so this mini victory was well received.

Having finished my biographical performances I stepped up to the reading desk to perform The Trial from Pickwick. This was one of Dickens’ favourite readings and is the one that he performed more than any other during his years of touring. It is filled with wonderful characters such as Sergeant Buzfuzz, Justice Stareleigh, Mrs Cluppins and, of course Mr Pickwick and Sam Weller, and pokes fun at the sheer pomposity of the legal system. The reading went well with plenty of laughter and when I concluded I received a very warm round of applause.

I was rather worried that I had over run somewhat, but nobody seemed to mind and I called to mind Jill’s words from earlier, ‘Remember, we are on Suffolk time here’. I returned to my kitchen and changed into my Doctor Marigold costume before returning to the hall, removing the reading desk and screen, and replacing it with the little wooden steps, the 3-legged stool, the rustic wooden box and a kettle and shovel which go to make my set for my favourite performance.

When everyone was seated I took to the stage in the character of the lovable cheapjack and told his story with all of its highs and lows. The audience were transfixed and were with me the whole way through (even when a rather loud motorcycle revved his engine in a most un-Victorian manner outside). Charles Dickens’ tour manager George Dolby described how the audiences gasped when a revelation is made in the last two lines of the performance, and I would love to be able to tell Dolby and his Guv’nor that a 21st century audience gasp in the same way – there was hardly a dry eye in the Guildhall on Thursday evening, and I include my own in that. It was a wonderful performance and one I was extremely proud of.

Margaret returned to the stage, clearly very moved, and thanked me, and after taking more applause I made my way to the back of the room and signed some copies of my books and chatted to the audience as they left. It rounded off a most enjoyable evening.

Margaret had very kindly offered me hospitality at her home, and when I had changed and packed up all of my things into the car she rode with me and directed me to her wonderful Victorian house where her husband Roger was waiting. We sat around the kitchen table and chatted as we ate some bread and cheese and sipped a little wine. We finished the evening with a cup of tea and my mug had a facsimile of the Magna Carta on it. Margaret’s email address features the word magnacarta and its turns out that she is a renowned export on the subject. This was a curious coincidence as earlier in the week on a run I had been listening to an audiobook of ‘Three Men in a Boat’ in which the narrator imagines being present at Runnymede in 1215. As I listened I realised that I know so little about such an important moment in English history and vowed that I would purchase a book on the subject and educate myself. So, in Margaret’s kitchen, as I sipped my tea, I mentioned to her this happy twist of fate, and explained that other knowing that the Maga Carta had been signed at Runnymede I knew little of the political background and circumstances. Well, I had clearly failed my first test, for Margaret pointed out that ‘It was never signed! It was sealed!’ Oops!

It was late now and as the adrenaline that had coursed through my veins that evening gently dissipated, I began to feel tired and said my goodnights to Margaret and Roger.

I slept very well and next morning enjoyed a simple breakfast of fruit juice, muesli and toast. Before I left, Margaret showed me their beautiful garden, as well as asking me to sign their visitor’s book. I had been their first guest, other than family, since the first lockdown of 2020. Soon it was time to get on the road and as I drove away I reflected on a very happy day in the company of kind and hospitable people, and I hope that the gap before the Dickens name returns to the town will be a little shorter this time.