Dickens werd aangenomen op een
advocatenkantoor. Eén van zijn eerste
werkgevers, Mr Edward Blackmore,
herinnerde zich het volgende:
18271828: "His taste for theatricals was
much promoted by a fellowclerk, named
Potter, with whom he chiefly associated.
They took every opportunity then unknown
to me, of going to a minor theatre, where (I
afterwards heard) they not infrequently
engaged in parts." (J.F.)
In de schets van "Private Theatres",
opgenomen in Sketches by Boz doet Dickens
verslag van deze zwerftochten langs de
Londense theatertjes:
"Richard the Third. - Duke of Glo'ster,
21; Earl of Richmond, 11.; Duke of
Buckingham, 15s.; Catesby, 12s; Tressel 10s.
6d.; Lord Stanley, 5s,; Lord Mayor of
London, 2s. 6d" Such are the written
placards watered up in the gentleman's
dressing-room, the green-room (where there
is any), at a private theatre; and such are
the sums extracted from the shoptill, or
overcharged in the office expenditure, by the
donkeys who are prevailed upon to pay for
permission to exhibit their lamentable
ignorance and boobyism on the stage of a
private theatre. This they do, in proportion
to the scope afforded by the character for
the display of their imbecility."
Dickens ontdekte een wereld waarover
hij zou gaan schrijven:
But whether in the laywer's office,
the minor theatres or in the streets of
London, his keen faculty of observations was
now in the fullest activity." (R.L)
Een jongeman met grote verwachtingen.
Na zijn eerste job als klerk op een
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advocatenkantoor kreeg hij de kans de
journalistiek in te gaan. Hij was ooggetuige
van het politieke schouwspel van die dagen:
de redevoeringen, de verkiezingen, de
parlementaire vergaderingen. Hij nam een
duidelijke voorsprong op zijn collega's omdat
hij als één van de eersten een soort steno
beheerste.
Maar nog steeds had hij ambities voor
het toneel. Thuis oefende hij urenlang, "even
such things as walking in and out, and
sitting down in a chair*. Zijn grote
voorbeeld was de acteur Charles Mathews
(1776-1835), "an excellent comedian". Hij
deed zelfs pogingen om een auditie te mogen
doen.
1832-1836: "In a letter to Forster of
winter 1844 C(harles) D(ickens) wrote that
when he was about twenty and knew three
or four successive years of Mathew's At
Home from sitting in the pit to hear them,
he wrote to Bartley, and told him how young
he was, and exactly what he thought he
could do; and that he believed he had a
strong perception of character an oddity,
and a natural power of reproducing in his
own person what he observed in others.
There must have been something on the
letter that struck the authorities, for Bartley
wrote to him, almost immidiately to say that
they were busy getting up The Hunchback
but that they would communicate with him
again in a fortnight." (L. of C.D.)
"In the same letter CD wrote that,
punctual to the time, another letter came,
with an appointment to do anything of
Mathew's he pleased, before him and Charles
Kemble, on a certain day at the theatre. His
sister Fanny was in the secret and to go
