Gerald Charles Dickens (actor)

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This article is about the actor Gerald Charles Dickens. For his grandfather and admiral, see Gerald Charles Dickens.

Gerald Charles Dickens
Gerald Dickens during his one-man show of A Christmas Carol
Born (1963-10-09) 9 October 1963 (age 61)
Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England
Occupations
  • Actor
  • performer
Spouse(s)Lucy Marsh (divorced)
Liz Hayes
​
(m. 2015)​
Children1
Relatives

Gerald Roderick Charles Dickens (born 9 October 1963) is an English actor and performer best known for his one-man shows based on the novels of his great-great-grandfather Charles Dickens. He was the President of the Dickens Fellowship from 2005 to 2007.[1]

Early life

Born in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, the fourth child and second son of David Kenneth Charles Dickens (1925–2005) and his wife Betty (1927–2010), Dickens is the grandson of Gerald Charles Dickens RN (after whom he was named) and the great-grandson of Henry Fielding Dickens KC; he is also the cousin of author Monica Dickens, biographer and writer Lucinda Hawksley, and actor Harry Lloyd.[2] Dickens attended Huntleys Secondary School for Boys in Royal Tunbridge Wells and West Kent College.

His acting career started with the youth drama group Design Theatre Workshop in his home town of Tunbridge Wells, with whom he learned the rudiments of stagecraft including improvisations and various exercises designed to develop ways of creating theatre.

Career

Inspired to be an actor by a performance of Nicholas Nickleby by the Royal Shakespeare Company, Gerald Dickens first performed his solo version of A Christmas Carol in America in 1993,[3] returning annually to perform at historic hotels, libraries, theatres and Dickens festivals. In 2009, Dickens' American tour included such Christmas companies as Vaillancourt Folk Art[4] and Byers Choice[5] and has yielded national and local press.[6][7]

Based on the readings performed by Charles Dickens himself during his own British and American tours, Gerald Dickens performs one-man theatrical adaptations of Great Expectations, Nicholas Nickleby, A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol,[8] in the latter creating 26 characters in a performance described by The New York Times as "a once in a lifetime brush with literary history."[9] He also performs adaptations of short stories such as The Signal-Man and Doctor Marigold.

Dickens has recorded unabridged audiobooks of The Pickwick Papers[10] and Nicholas Nickleby. In December 2011 he appeared on the BBC's Songs of Praise.[11] A keen golfer, he wrote and performs the two-act play Top Hole!, based on four golfing stories by P. G. Wodehouse. In 2015, at the Music Box Theatre in Minneapolis, he played Charles Dickens in Jeffrey Hatcher's one-hander To Begin With, which was adapted from Dickens' The Life of Our Lord.[12][13][14] He played the role again in a 2017 revival. His book, Dickens and Staplehurst: A Biography of a Rail Crash, published in 2021, is concerned with the Staplehurst rail crash in which his famous ancestor was involved.[15] In December 2022 he appeared in Miriam's Dickensian Christmas on the UK's Channel 4 with Miriam Margolyes.

Personal life

In 2004, Dickens won the British TV show The Weakest Link during its 8th season in an episode where the contestants all had famous ancestors.[16][17]

Gerald Dickens lived in Goudhurst in Kent with his former wife Lucy Marsh, with whom he had a son, Cameron. He married his long-term partner Liz Hayes, a pianist who sometimes accompanies his performances, on 10 August 2015. They live in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

See also

References

  1. ^ The Dickensian No. 482 Vol. 106 Part 3 Winter 2010 pg 285
  2. ^ Dickens Family Tree website
  3. ^ Dickens's biography on Jackprises.com
  4. ^ Dickens Performing at Vaillancourt Folk Art
  5. ^ Dickens Performing at Byers Choice
  6. ^ 'A Real Dickens' (Telegram and Gazette)
  7. ^ Hear The Radio Interview
  8. ^ Dickens on the Lichfied Garrick Theatre website
  9. ^ Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities website
  10. ^ Classic FM website
  11. ^ BBC Songs of Praise- 'A Dickensian Christmas' 11 December 2011
  12. ^ Review: Dickens commands stage in world premiere 'To Begin With' - Star Tribune - 24 February 2015
  13. ^ Review of To Begin With on talkinbroadway.com
  14. ^ 'What the Dickens? Local playwright wrote "To Begin With," starring Gerald Dickens' - Minnesota Daily - 19 February 2015
  15. ^ Dickens, Gerald. Dickens and Staplehurst: A Biography of a Rail Crash, Olympia Publishers (2021) ISBN 978-1-78830-851-9
  16. ^ 'Dickens of a victory' - The Daily Telegraph 14 January 2004
  17. ^ The Weakest Link (UK) Season 8 Episode 3: 12 January 2004 - tv.com
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