Location: Glasgow
No. of members: 14
Hiya, and welcome to our group’s very first blog as Dickens Champions! We are the Mitchell Classics Book Group, and there are 14 members in our group: Anne Marie, Brian, Duncan, Janice, John, Katherine, Lauren, Mario, Mary, Matthew, Maureen, Pauline, Rosalind and Stephan.
We’re very much looking forward to an exciting year of checking out the Dickens events that are scheduled for telly and radio, as well as the many talks and theatre events planned for 2012, and wow, are there a lot of them! We’ll be keeping up with all the local Dickens events here in Glasgow, reporting back, and giving you the lowdown – the ‘where’, the ‘when’, and the ‘were they worth the hype?’. In addition, we’ll be reading and reviewing the following Dickens titles: Oliver Twist, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, David Copperfield, Hard Times, and Barnaby Rudge.
Anne Marie’s review of Dickens’ Women
‘I missed "Miriam Margoyles’ Dickens’ Women":http://www.dickenswomen.com/ when it was first broadcast on Radio 4 Extra on January 8th but happily managed to capture this on the listen again facility. What a delight! In a well researched, insightful and beautifully performed little gem of a programme, Margoyles single-handedly takes us on a tour of Dickens’ women – of those in his family and immediate circle of friends and acquaintances and of the characters which so many of them became in his novels and stories.
In her colourful and character-ful voice, Margoyles, who describes herself as a
“passionate admirer of Dickens”, brought his characters to life starting with Sarah Gamp and finishing with Miss Flite by way of Mrs Pipchin, Rosa Dartle, Miss Mowcher, Little Nell, Miss Havisham and many others. Her passionate admiration for Dickens allows for critical insights – how happy we all are to agree with her finding the ubiquitous young heroinies based on his sickly and saintly sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth, as “icky” and in an affectionate little aside after discussing the long-lasting impact of an early amorous infatuation, she comments “actually Dickens never got over anything that happpend to him”.
This was riveting listening and the piano themes linking the readings were wonderefully chosen and performed. Recorded in front of a live audience and winning a deserved standing ovation, I can only hope that there will be further opportunities to hear this programme and that somewhere within the bicentenary celebrations, someone somewhere will be able to persuade Miriam Margoyles to take it on tour. But please ensure that there are some Scottish dates.’
Our Dickens Champions
Meet the rest of our Dickens Champions and watch out for their blog posts as they read their way through Dickens during 2012.
