What the Dickens?

Members of The Choir of St Marylebone Parish Church

Gavin Roberts (piano)

Clare Hoskins (oboe)

Alexander Knox (actor)

Rosamund Shelley (actor)

Charles Dickens, perhaps the greatest of English story tellers, lived in Marylebone for many years, within a stone’s throw of the church. It was in his house, 1 Devonshire Terrace, that some of his books were written between 1839 and 1951: The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge, American Notes, Martin Chuzzlewit, The Christmas Carol, The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, Dombey & Son and David Copperfield. In the late 1950s the house was demolished and replaced with an office block, and a mural erected incorporating characters from these novels: Scrooge, (a head with a door knocker representing Marley's ghost) Barnaby Rudge, Little Nell and Granddad, Dombey and daughter, Mrs. Gamp, David Copperfield, and Mr. Micawber. This performance introduces you to all these characters in a newly devised piece with by composer Martin Bussey.