Actor Dominic Gerrard hosts an exciting new series that explores the Life and Times of Charles Dickens: his extraordinary novels, who he was as a person, his career as a performer, and his activism. Guests include: Stephen Fry, Miriam Margolyes, Armando Iannucci, Alice Loxton, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Lucinda Hawksley, John Mullan, Pen Vogler, Andrew Davies, Rosie Holt, Bernard Cornwell .... and many more academics, writers, actors, directors and descendants of the great man himself! Along side these interviews there are special Dickens readings from across his works ... Thank you for listening 🔥
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
0:00
|
6:33
Here are two fragments that didn't make the cut in the previous episode on THE PICKWICK PAPERS ...
Prof. Hugo Bowles talks about the afterlife of Pickwick &Gina Beck reads an extract where Pickwick is observed from a window by a Scientific Gentleman!
Hi everyone, I hope you enjoyed the previous episode on the Pickwick Papers. Here are two fragments that I couldn't fit into the main discussion, but I still want to share with you. So, here is Professor Hugo Bowles one more time.
SPEAKER_03
So, Hugo, what do you think is the legacy then, an afterlife of Pickwick?
SPEAKER_01
Um Pickwick had an absolutely massive afterlife, particularly in the 19th century. You know, there were by the end of the 1870s, it had sold about one and a half million copies, which was a huge amount. And it was the most widely read work by Dickens. And it had already had five theatrical adaptations in 1838. So people were copying it immediately, people were producing it in the theatre. Um, Dickens reintroduced Pickwick and Sam and Tony in in Master Humphrey's Clock as well later on, which wasn't so successful. And he did public readings of the trial of Pickwick. But then there was also loads of sort of Pickwick merchandise. You know, there was a Pickwick songbook, there was a Sam Weller joke book. You could buy Sam Weller corduroy trousers. You know, I'd buy a pair of those. I'd quite, you know, I'm sure they were, you know, they they kind of go very well, doesn't it? A Sam Weller corduroy, you'd buy them, wouldn't you? Um, Pickwick pastries, there were fat boy pies. Everyone was using Pickwick to market their produce. And then, of course, Pickwick, because Pickwick was a traveller, Pickwick itself travels, and you know, and people opened Pickwick pubs and restaurants. Street names were named after Pickwick. You know, even now in London, you've got all kinds of names, you know, Pickwick Plays, Pickwick Street. In the borough, you've got Weller Street, Sawyer Street. So it spreads geographically. And then, of course, it goes sort of international. And what you get is there was a weekly journal called Pickwick in Boulogne, or Pickwick in America, edited by Boss BOS. People were starting to plagiarize Dickens, which he got very angry about. But um, Pickwick in India, it's like the carry-on films, you know, it's it becomes a kind of it becomes a kind of franchise, you know, carry on here, carry on there, carry on pickwick, and it becomes completely unconnected with the book. You know, it sort of takes on a life of its own. I mean, just to give you an an amazing example, when my kids were growing up in Italy, this is very recent, there was a brand of children's clothing called Pickwick, and it was a really successful brand. But it the image, the logo of the Pickwick Italian clothing brand was a sort of stick figure with a little boy with frazzled hair. Nothing to do with the fat, stout gentleman that Pickwick begins with, the complete opposite almost. But that's what happened with Pickwick. It's a memorable name, this Pukwaker. So it's as if Pickwick has become this memorable something, but the actual book itself is perhaps becoming a bit forgotten. And I think we need to revive that. Everyone knows what Pickwick is, they've got this image of Pickwick, but maybe the adventures have been forgotten a little bit. What do you think?
SPEAKER_03
I think that's right. I think the images don't do it justice, really. You get one impression really off the images, but the story itself is just rip-roaring, totally unpredictable, and incredibly fun. You mentioning uh the corduroy trousers a moment ago reminded me of just one episode, and this is what Pickwick is like. You have these little things that are mentioned, and then it lights on your mind. The uh when Benjamin Allen is trying to get his sister Arabella to marry Bob Sawyer. Yes. He recounts their childhood where and he's sort of saying to Bob, Yes, because my sister has slighted you her whole life. There was that time when you had a maybe a caraway seed biscuit inside your trousers that you gave her, and she refused to eat it because she felt that the cordroy trousers you were wearing had made the biscuit too warm. Incredible detail, actually. Isn't it great? Isn't it great? And I think readers need to read it because you're just missing out.
SPEAKER_02
And here is also the brilliant Gina Beck once more, this time reading an excerpt where Pickwick is swaying in the dark outside, holding a lantern, dropping in and out of sight, observed at a distance from the window of an eminent scientist.
SPEAKER_00
The scientific gentleman was gazing abstractly on the thick darkness outside when he was very much surprised by observing a most brilliant light glide through the air at a short distance above the ground and almost instantaneously vanish. After a short time the phenomenon was repeated, not once or twice, but several times. At last the scientific gentleman, laying down his pen, began to consider to what natural causes these appearances were to be assigned. They were not meteors, they were too low, they were not glow worms, they were too high. What could they be? The scientific gentleman was a bachelor. He had no wife to call in and astonish, so he rang the bell for his servant. Proffel, said the scientific gentleman, there is something very extraordinary in the air tonight. Did you see that? said the scientific gentleman, pointing out of the window as the light again became visible. Yes, I did, sir. What did you think of it, Proffel? Think of it, sir? Yes, you've been bred up in this country. What should you say was the cause for those lights now? I should say it was Thebes, sir, said Proffle, at length. You're a fool. I may go downstairs, said the scientific gentleman. Thank you, sir.
