Review of A Dickens of a Christmas: and god bless us everyone
For the last talk before Christmas, Bertie Pearce gave a very spirited lecture bursting with humour and panache making it, comfortably, a precursor to the season of pantomimes and festivities.
Pearce, a member of the Inner Magic Circle - an interest obtained from the patrilineal line of his family - threaded his talk with various tricks including a two tone handkerchief and three lengths of rope. He, as with the previous (October) speaker the cartoonist Harry Venning, solicited oohs and ahhs with his legerdemain. It was absorbing.
Charles Dickens was fascinated by names and he put this to great effect with his descriptive characters; Mr Wilkins Micawber (David Copperfield) Miss Havisham (Great Expectations) Seth Pecksniff (Martin Chuzzlewit) and from a Christmas Carol; Ebenezer Scrooge, Jacob Marley, Bob Cratchit and Mr. Fezziwig.
The novella ‘A Christmas Carol’ was published in December 1843 (Illustrations, John Leech) It was a critical success and by the end of the following year thirteen editions had been published.
The idiom ‘what the Dickens’ is used for emphasis and has become part of everyday parlance.
We heard interesting comment that most Victorians did not have a kitchen as such, as we know, and to cook a bird the local baker would let people use the residual heat from his oven. During the festivities a long established tradition of consuming a heady hot boozy snifter called Smoking Bishop (‘Fine oranges well roasted with sugar and wine in a cup, they’ll make a sweet Bishop when gentlefolk sup’ - Jonathan Swift) was partaken.
And, if you will excuse me. . . . And by the way a merry Christmas to you all.
Mark Bench
Review by Mark Bench