CHARLES DICKENS
FESTIVAL CONCERT ROOM,
THE POOR TRAVELLER,
BOOTS a HOLLY TREE INN,
MRS. GAMP.
MONDAY EVENING,
- 85 -
WELL READ AT THE
YORK,
on
OCTOI1ER astb, at a o'clock.
n u rs fOB Tilt IlKMUVl,-
Stalls, (numbered and reserved) - Four Shillings.
Gallery, Two Shillings.
Back Seats, One Shilling.
Ticket» to be bail of Mr MF.NHY BANKS, Mumc Warehouse, Stoneyate, York,
■Whw a lias of Ik* IWri goal, mar ba men
'{-JT' ,1fi "eh "cruion (un Mr Pirtiw.'» ftprricnor ksipc Ud.ew and in tha Kuil. cauaad f
amnwn""" and mnfi,.,"" I-n dmiht on.ol/n'.mnallr 1. h, Irar o* «W plarma d.inng the iaat quarter of an hour of thr Read
an »n*'r hut tiffraaonal lr pr-teai.
In raar .nj pn,..n ,,f Ihr mmpanr ahn.ild be under lb« nee»*.,), of learmf before tbe Hrw of the R*wdin« in
to .v. I 'hrn-.K'-ee lKs -pcirtuoit.If irdwH b, the nt'r»ai bet*r«t> th# part, when Mr Oict.wt return for fi«t nunulsa.
THE READING WILL LA9T TWO HOURS.
Copy of Poster announcing: a reading: by Dickens
It is these observations that make me suspect Dickens's public readings to have
been better than his theatrical activities. I can't help feeling that the nature of the
enterprise lent itself better to the structure of Dickens's imagination. As an actor, I'm
tempted to guess, he simply exploited his undoubted talent for mimicry. As a director he
saw that others did the same. But as a reader of his own works, he was able not only to
mimic his characters superbly, but to stand apart from them at the same time (something
invited by the text, of course) and conjured not by the gimcrackery of the Victorian theatre
but by Dickens's own marvellous prose.
It was the special quality of his imagination I detect here that led him to write more
animatedly about circuses than about more ambitious kinds of theatre. His genius came
into operation not when he was being enthusiastic, but when one part of himself was able
ironically to watch another part of himself being enthusiastic. Or at least being kind and