• The Tom Walsingham Mysteries
  • Clara who?
  • Stories
  • Contact

Scribblings

~ Clara Giuliani, storyteller

Scribblings

Tag Archives: Charles Dickens

A strange December

03 Thursday Dec 2020

Posted by la Clarina in Scribbling, Theatre

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Charles Dickens, closed theatres, Covid, December, Opening Night

December again…

Had things been different – had things been normal – I’d be going through the backstage routine for the umpteenth time with the newest recruit of the Quick Change Team (whoever she or he might be), getting ready for tonight’s dress rehearsals of a Christmas Carol, discussing our Scrooge’s foibles – and perhaps trying on my own costume for Ruth Grimshaw in the prologue… All the while, also getting ready for our new big play – my own Verne adaptation, to open on New Year’s Eve.  Also, Gemma and the good old Squirrels would be doing my Christmas Triptych on the 17th – so, even without being directly and officially involved in the production, more preparations… Continue reading →

A Christmas Carol – News from the front

02 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by la Clarina in Theatre

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

A Christmas Carol, backstage, Charles Dickens, prologue

And so the second run of our CC is nearing its end: four more nights now, and we’ll be done for the season.

And you know what? I’m going to miss it terribly. It’s been an intense and very successful affair, sold out from the beginning, with the box office besieged with calls well after all the seats were gone (why, one particular lady called last Saturday, during the show – begging for eight seats, no less…), ticket-less people turning up every night, queuing in hope of a last-minute seat, and a number of very good reviews… Continue reading →

Tiny Tims, Black Cloaks, and Major Rows

06 Friday Dec 2019

Posted by la Clarina in Theatre

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Backstage Life, Charles Dickens, dress rehearsal, first night, Shakespeare in Love

The second run of “my” A Christmas Carol” opens tonight – and let me boast a little: we’re sold out all the way to January. There is no way on earth to call it anything else than a huge hit, and I’m inordinately proud.

That said… Continue reading →

A Tale of Two Writers

10 Thursday Oct 2019

Posted by la Clarina in Stories, Theatre

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens, plagiarism, The Dead Heart, Watts Phillips

Gordon Craig in The Dead Heart

In 1859, as A Tale of Two Cities was being first serialized in weekly instalments in Dickens’ own magazine, All The Year Round, a play by Watts Phillips, called The Dead Heart, made its stage debut at the Adelphi, to much success.

Phillips, a novelist and playwright, had had little luck lately, because he insisted on writing serious, near-austere pieces that pleased the critics (and, apparently, the Queen) more than they did the melodrama-loving general public.

The Dead Heart, though, a stirring tale of the French Revolution, filled with thwarted love, howling injustice, epic struggles, evil abbés, heroic sacrifice, and so on, was a different matter – all the more so because very soon people started to notice the close resemblance between the play and that new novel by Mr. Dickens… Continue reading →

Quick-changing Scrooge

15 Thursday Nov 2018

Posted by la Clarina in Theatre

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Backstage jobs, Charles Dickens, quick-change

And so, thanks to A Christmas Carol, I now have another backstage job to add to my theatre resumé.

Because yes, we debuted last Saturday, and it went enormously well, and we’re very nearly sold out until January, and have actual waiting lists… And usually, at this point, I’ve done what I had to do, and can sit back and enjoy the ride, right? Not so this time! Continue reading →

The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

14 Saturday Jul 2018

Posted by la Clarina in Silents

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens, French Revolution, July 14th, silent films

Oh yes, July 14th and all that… And since we were discussing Dickens, and mentioned A Tale of Two Cities, I thought I’d put here a very, very old and very compressed silent version of Sydney Carton’s story:

Yes – the whole tale in little more than twenty minutes… Well, it was thirty minutes, originally – because this 1911 ATotC was released as a three-reeler*, but only this two-reel version survives. Still, who knows, maybe the complete one will turn up someday… These things keep happening, don’t they?

Meanwhile, it is always fascinating to see how screenwriters worked back then, with the need to cram several hundred pages of plot and characters into a handful of minutes. True, sometimes they relied on a reasonable certainty that their audiences already knew the story – and this might well be one such case – but we can’t tell for sure, because we still miss one third of the adaptation as it was originally conceived by Eugene Mullin.

For one thing, who knows whether the half-hour version would still have one little title card informing us that it was the best of times, it was the worst of times…?

___________________________________

* Three weekly one-reel installments, actually – and wouldn’t Dickens have loved that!

Dickens for (Italian) Children

12 Thursday Jul 2018

Posted by la Clarina in Books

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens, children's classics, Italian publishing, Oliver Twist

A few days ago I was talking books with a reasonably educated and definitely adult acquaintance – and, on saying that I’ve read a good deal of Dickens through the years, I earned a raised eyebrow and this question: but isn’t Dickens a children’s author?

Right then I raised an eyebrow in turn – but I have to admit that my acquaintance had reasons to think so. Very Italian reasons that have little to do with the audience Dickens wrote for… Continue reading →

The Man Who Invented Christmas

28 Thursday Dec 2017

Posted by la Clarina in Scribbling, Stories

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Susan Coyne, The Man Who Invented Christmas

I emerged from my Reading Days last night, for a trip to town to see The Man Who Invented Christmas – and, unlike the rest of my party, quite loved it.

I admit I’d been wondering a little as I watched: the film is as lovely as a vintage illustration or a Christmas card, and Dan Stevens is vividly endearing as the overimaginative, struggling, high-strung writer – but there are two aspects of the writing that, while very, very appealing to me, are perhaps not made to click with an Italian audience… Continue reading →

Silent Scrooge

24 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by la Clarina in Silents

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Edison, silent movie

Christmas Eve… We can’t very well go without some Dickens now, can we?

So… What about the 1910 Edison silent version?

Happy Christmas Eve, o Readers!

Oh dear…

22 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by la Clarina in Books

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Christmas

untitled-5Oh, I’ve been neglecting Scribblings something bad, lately…

The fact is, December is December, and I always find myself trotting around, doing errands, hunting for presents, queuing at the post office, crafting insanely complicated Christmas decorations…

And how is this differend from anyone else’s  December, you’ll ask? Oh, it isn’t at all, I suppose – except that I never quite understand just where all the hours go, and my poor little blog suffers for it… Well, I expect things to go back to some kind of normalcy after Christmas. Or at least, I hope.z

Meanwhile, did you know this website, devoted entirely to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol?

It is a real treasure trove: there is the story itself, of course, and essays about it, and articles about Dickens and his works, and Dickens’s own essays on Christmas, and galleries of vintage illustrations, and artwork, and information about many adaptations for the screen and radio, and links…

As I said, a treasure trove if you are a fan of the book.

I am. And while cynical enough to raise an eyebrow at Scrooge’s fright-induced U turn, and to see the element of emotional blackmail, I find – every December – that I don’t mind too much being emotionally blackmailed when it comes to Christmas…

Related articles
  • Dickens’ Christmas mystery (conservativeread.com)
  • Personal postbox of Charles Dickens goes back into service (theguardian.com)
  • Listen to Neil Gaiman Read Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ (mentalfloss.com)

Salva

← Older posts

Seek and Find

♠ THE TOM WALSINGHAM MYSTERIES

Available on Amazon
Available on Amazon

The Copperfield Review’s first anthology – containing Gentleman in Velvet

Recent Posts

  • January Blues
  • Guest-posting at The Writing Desk
  • The kids
  • All those words!
  • One of those weeks…

Popular Scribblings

  • Dante's Manfred
  • Dead And Living Ned
  • Michael Goodliffe, Wartime Actor
  • How I Met Alan Breck
  • Here comes Hope & Glory
  • Underfictionalised

Categories

  • Books
  • Eccentricities
  • History
  • Lostintranslation
  • Poetry
  • Scribbling
  • Silents
  • Stories
  • Theatre
  • Things
  • Uncategorized

Enter your email address to get a messenger on horseback... er, an email will reach you by email when a new Scribbling is out.

Join 1,698 other subscribers

RSS Feeds

  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments

No Blog’s an Island

Sapere Books

 

IBA

International Bloggers' Association

I tweet on Twitter

And I pin on Pinterest

Senza Errori di Stumpa – my Italian blog

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Scribblings
    • Join 311 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Scribblings
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...