Dickens of a good show

Last night Tony and I went to see Miriam Gargoyles (pronounced gar-go-lees) not the way I said it. She does a one woman show where she does around 20+ different characters almost all women from the novels and letters of Charles Dickens. On the stage were her, a pianist and a few chairs. For a one woman cast it was amazing. Had we known al the novels we might have appreciated it more but even without that it was incredible.

This is what the reviewer said

What comes across from Margolyes is not only an in-depth study of Dickens the man and how the public persona was not always what the real man was like, but how his life - and in particular his relationships with women - influenced many of his female characters. (And I might add his relationships with women appeared to be decidedly odd.)

This is Margolyes' forte; portraying many of these women from extracts of his books interspersed with Dickens' life story. She re-creates 23 characters and each is as individual as the next, her bright, open, expressive face showing as much of what was behind the lines as the lines themselves. And none of the dourness of Dickens' writing but humour, and loads of it, permeated her performance.