This past event was fully booked!
Join us for a fun hour of LIVE Dickens with Dr Tim Tricker and Martin Malone who will be reading extracts from two of the writer's favourite performance pieces.
The readings are part of a programme of talks and events to accompany the Special Collections Centre's exhibition 'An Audience with Charles Dickens' and will be performed in The Gallery. The exhibition is a showcase of the SCC's collection of first editions of all 15 of Charles Dickens's novels and an entertaining look at Dickens as a performer of his own work.
Part 1:
Martin Malone reads 'Sikes and Nancy' from Oliver Twist
Part 2:
Tim Tricker reads from The Pickwick Papers
The murder scene from Oliver Twist became part of Charles Dickens’s repertoire during his Farewell Reading Tour of 1868. The author acted out Nancy’s pitiful screams and Sikes’s blows upon her with such violent conviction that audiences were terrified. It is reported that, at certain theatres, extra staff were engaged to administer first aid to members of the public who might faint in shock if ‘Sikes and Nancy’ was part of the bill.
Charles Dickens's performances often included a tragic or melodramatic episode from one of his novels, followed by something more light-hearted so that his audiences would leave in good spirits. On his second visit to Aberdeen, in 1866, he read the trial scene from The Pickwick Papers to cheer up the Music Hall visitors who had earlier been gripped by the dramatic and poignant description of the shipwreck scene from David Copperfield.
Please note: smelling salts will not be provided!
- Speaker
- Dr Tim Tricker and Martin Malone
- Hosted by
- Special Collections Centre
- Venue
- The Gallery The Sir Duncan Rice Library The University of Aberdeen Bedford Road Aberdeen AB24 3AA
- Contact
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Entry to the event is FREE but booking is advised.
For further information or to book contact:
scc.events@abdn.ac.uk or call 01224 273049.