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The Mystery Of Charles Dickens
- tour Playwright - Peter Ackroyd Director - Patrick Garland Designer - Christopher Woods Producers - Ambassador Theatre Group, ACT Productions and Pre-eminence Ltd Lighting - Nick Richings Venue - Theatre Royal Glasgow 0141 332 9000 282 Hope Street near RSAMD, bar and restaurant Dates - 2 - 6 Oct at 7:15pm Sat Matinee at 2:15pm then off on tour Runtime - 2 hrs 15mins including 15 minute interval Reviewer - Thelma Good The gauze, with Buss's portrait of Dickens dreaming of his characters, rises. In a set made of huge, empty, slightly gilt picture frames, one skewed, is an actor, mercurial, transporting. We laugh at the hazards of stagecoach travel, shiver at Nancy's death and want to slap oh so humble Heap. Dickens understood his struggling fellow man so well. Our imagination is liberated by the combination of Dickens the author, Peter Ackroyd his biographer, the playwright here, and the actor and man before us - Simon Callow. Never lacking in dimensions, Simon Callow slips from narrator to Dickens and into Dickens extraordinary characters. He wears a smart modern suit - no attempt to make a faux pastiche of Dickens by making the actor seem to be in a Victorian past. Here the reality comes from the realness of the man. An understanding of theatre Dickens too grasped. At 47 Dickens began his 1st tour of nightly readings where he brought to life on stage the characters he first created on the page. Under Callow's spell the monarch is still Victoria and it's the author Dickens who crumples up his body and Mrs Gamp is before us. It's fascinating as the boundaries between actor and roles frequently dissolve and disintegrate. The last scene before the interval is lit and played so intelligently - making you eager for the bell - returning us to the darkened space where the C19th is only a gesture, a voice and what voice, away. In the second darker half the golden frames sparkle less, their surfaces lit so that their ageing is more interesting. So it was in Dickens's life and times and the characters he continued to see and create. The hazards of train travel, missing rather than cracked rails, a late passion he may never have consummated and the demands of life and ill health - all combine to make us, Callow and Dickens seem but a hair's breath from one another. As Dickens' audience gave him warmth so too do the audience to Callow. Like the author when he looks at the audience you feel he recognises each one of us, uniquely. And so when he spoke Dickens' words, there are dark shadows on the earth, and reminded us that dark makes the sun brighter, the light of our common humanity shone more strongly last night. The mystery indeed. © Thelma Good 2 October 2001 PS: If you can't get to see the production or if you do can I recommend the books Being An Actor by Simon Callow and Dickens by Peter Ackroyd
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