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Charles Dickens: The
Haunted Man - Tour.
Playwright - John Clifford.
Director - Ian Grieve.
Designer - Monica Nisbet.
Lighting - Mark Pritchard.
Company - Pitlochry Festival Theatre.
Cast - here .
Venue - King's, Edinburgh.
Dates - 29 October - 1 November at 7.30 pm (Saturday matinee,
2.30pm).
2003 Tour Dates and Times - here .
Seen to review at .
Reviewer - Lorraine McCann.
Complex, entertaining, and resonant.
In a dimly lit study, stocked with Chesterfield armchairs, elegant writing
desk and various items of taxidermy, a scholarly but dapper figure stalks
the floor, waiting for his audience to take their seats. We are, of course,
expecting Charles Dickens - but what we get is 'Doctor Marigold', a self-confessed
cheap-jack salesman, and a fine introduction to the cast of hundreds inside
the mind of England's greatest novelist.
The beauty of this collaboration between the actor Jimmy Chisholm, playwright
John Clifford and director Ian Grieve is that they have, in a sense, inverted
the usual 'biopic' formula. Instead of trusting that biographical detail
will somehow lead to an understanding of the work, they have focused on
Dickens' work and shown how each of his characters has its genesis within
the man himself. 'I have to feel everything,' he says, 'otherwise I couldn't
write a single word.' Of course, making art like this doesn't come cheap,
and the roaring pain Dickens felt at the deaths of his most precious creatures
is truly
affecting.
Although the low level of light on stage occasionally obscured his facial
expressions, Chisholm gets his sharply comic teeth right into Clifford's
richly imaginative script. Indeed, there were a couple of occasions where
the off-stage sound effects caused Chisholm almost to corpse - but he
rode the laughs and brought the gigglers masterfully back under control.
This is theatre that is complex, entertaining, and resonant with artistic
truth - what else do you want?
© Lorraine McCann 30 October 2003. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Cast: Jimmy Chisholm as Dickens and his characters.
2003 Tour Scottish Dates of Pitlochry Festival
Theatre's production of Charles Dickens: The Haunted Man .
Tour begins
After being performed in Rep in the Pitlochry Festival Summer Seasons
2002 & 3.
29 Oct - 1 Nov at 7.30 pm (Sat mat 2.30pm) Edinburgh Kings
Theatre 0131 529 6000.
7+ 8 Nov at 8pm Sat Mat at 2pm Bristol Old Vic 0117 987
7877.
11 - 13 Nov at 8pm at Glasgow Tron Theatre 0141 552 4267.
Tour ends.
Theatre Editor, Thelma Good's e-mail is
thelma@edinburghguide.com
Although every effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the
information presented in these pages, no responsibility can be accepted
for any errors or omissions.
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