‘The Mystery of Charles Dickens’ review

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2012 couldn’t have been a more perfect year in which to celebrate the bicentenary of one of Britain’s biggest cultural treasures: Charles Dickens.

Simon Callow – another of Britain’s cultural treasures; a thespian you may recognise from the original stage production of Amadeus, or from cinematic outings such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Shakespeare in Love and, er, Thunderpants – returns to the West End stage with prolific writer Peter Ackroyd’s The Mystery of Charles Dickens.

While the title may suggest an ITV1 Boxing Day special starring David Suchet, it is actually an intriguing one-man show that aims to unravel the man behind the dust-jackets.

Piecing together bits from Dickens’ enduring bestsellers with quotes from his letters and snipes from his detractors (Oscar Wilde’s bitchy, on-the-money remark about Little Nell from The Old Curiosity Shop being a particular rib-tickler), the script is a dazzling theatrical mosaic that requires a talented performer to play no less than 49 separate characters.

Unfortunately for the talented Mr Callow, however, these 49 separate characters were written by Charles Dickens, so the figure is closer to seven. Lowlifes with speech impediments, self-aggrandising blowhards — there’s a limit to the variety an actor can bring to these two-dimensional creations, amusing though they may be. As such, the one-man show begins to feel somewhat long, and repetitive.

Mystery also requires prior knowledge and admiration of the works referenced. Not that that’s an insurmountable issue, as one would have to have been on a kibbutz for the past 200 years not to know Dickens’ stories, through countless adaptations if not classroom tedium.

Thankfully, there’s enough of Dickens’ wit and humour, delivered with Callow’s expert energy and timing, to keep the performance chugging along. Most amusing are the casual glimpses of Dickens’ own colourful life; his obsession with his sister-in-law and her bizarre death; his dabbling in mesmerism; his heroic (and hilarious) handling of a railway accident; his reception in America; his Cher-like farewell tours… The author’s life was arguably more entertaining than his books.

The set consists of a large photo frame, interrupted by the corner of another. It serves to highlight both the theatricality of Dickens (man and oeuvre) and the fact that what we have is only a partial portrait. As the title goes, Dickens was a man of mystery; a man who performed and glittered for new acquaintances but soured the lives of his supposed loved ones. Catherine Hogarth, his first wife, is as cruelly short-changed here as she was in life, and while the lack of running time dedicated to her may be fitting, it is also unsatisfying.

As it stands, Ackroyd and Callow, who has in fact written a book about Dickens’ relationship with the stage, succeed in presenting us with an elusive figure; a man who may or may not be each of those 49 characters himself — a point illustrated beautifully in a standout re-enactment of Nancy’s fate at the hands of Bill Sykes. Dickens, like Callow, performed both parts: victim and villain, on stage and off it.

Performed on Monday 17th September 2012 at the Playhouse Theatre in London.

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