Talk about carrying on a family legacy! Gerald Charles Dickens, an actor and producer from Oxford, England, is the great-great grandson of Charles Dickens, whose literary masterpieces include the holiday classic, “A Christmas Carol.” Dickens returns to Wilton next week to perform his one-man show based on the novel.
I first caught his show in 2012, and it was lovely. Dickens, who does indeed bear a resemblance to his famed ancestor, performed with energy and warmth and was equally charming and gracious while signing programs for attendees after the show. This year, he returns to the Clune Center for the Arts at Wilton High School on Nov. 27 for a 7 p.m. performance.
Presented by The Historical Christmas Barn and The Wilton Historical Society, the show features Dickens performing 26 characters with nothing more than a table, wing chair, and hat rack on stage with him. Dickens did his first reading of the Christmas classic in 1993 for the 150th anniversary of the story's publication, at the request of a friend who was raising money for a historical restoration project. Though he had "avoided anything to do with Dickens like the plague," he enjoyed it and has since taken his show around the world.
To hear Dickens discuss his show on YouTube, click here.