Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire! 🔥
Actor Dominic Gerrard hosts an exciting new series that explores the Life and Times of Charles Dickens: his extraordinary novels, who he was as a person, his career as a performer, and his activism. Guests include: Stephen Fry, Miriam Margolyes, Armando Iannucci, Alice Loxton, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Lucinda Hawksley, John Mullan, Pen Vogler, Andrew Davies, Rosie Holt, Bernard Cornwell .... and many more academics, writers, actors, directors and descendants of the great man himself! Along side these interviews there are special Dickens readings from across his works ... Thank you for listening 🔥
Episodes
Ahead of a new series this month Dominic re-shares his popular interview with the inimitable Armando Iannucci!
Armando is one of the leading comedy writers and political satirists of our time - where we delve into his literary passions and influences.
This lively conversation peels back the layers of Armando's lifelong love of Charles Dickens - Martin Chuzzlewit in particular -and his interest in John Milton's masterpiece Paradise Lo...
Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire! will return in the summer ...
In the meantime there are nearly 100 Episodes to enjoy with guests such as: Stephen Fry, Miriam Margolyes, Armando Iannucci, Andrew Davies, Alice Loxton, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Lucinda Hawksley, John Bowen, John Mullan, Rosie Holt, Steven Knight …. And many more!
And if you’d like to make a small donation to cover the costs of researching, recording...
Dominic welcomes back one of the most celebrated guests of this series Professor Robert Douglas-Fairhurst ...
Robert’s latest book Look Closer: How to get more out of reading (published by Penguin) is an invitation to all of us to go deeper into our reading, and find greater joy and meaning in the works of great writers from all ages and backgrounds. With examples from Dickens (of course!) but also George Eliot, Shakespe...
This Christmas Eve ... Dominic is joined by the inimitable Meredith Braun, who played Scrooge's love interest Belle - opposite Michael Caine (and Fozziwig!) - in Brian Henson's The Muppet Christmas Carol ...
Meredith shares her memories of filming the role, whilst simultaneously playing Eponine in the iconic West End production of Les Miserables ...
A special thank you to Tim Hutton at Stage Door Records for allowing the use of the r...
Dominic is joined again by the inimitable Dr. Lydia Craig where they dive into Dickens' third Christmas Book, with readings from the award-winning actress Penelope Rawlins
The Cricket On The Hearth - published 180 years ago this year - explodes into life from the very start and hardly pauses for breath until the very end. Its unrelenting pace sweeps its characters along whether they be human, animal, insect or household object &hell...
Dominic is joined by the inimitable Dr. Philip Palmer: Robert H. Taylor Curator & Department Head of Literary and Historical Manuscripts at the Morgan Library & Museum and custodian of Charles Dickens' one and only handwritten manuscript of A Christmas Carol ...
Here Philip shares many of the secrets of the manuscript, such as the ideas and phrases that Dickens struck from his story (that can still be seen in the crossi...
Dominic reads a quietly enchanting festive episode from “Master Humphrey’s Clock” by Charles Dickens.
Master Humphrey is wandering the snowy streets, one 25th December, and casually walks into a tavern. A decision that will change his life forever ...
A MERRY CHRISTMAS to all you listeners, wherever in the world you are!
Original cover headshot of Dominic Gerrard © Jane Lloyd&Original Dickens illustrations ...
Dominic is joined by returning guest, the inimitable Professor John Mullan: author of What Matters in Jane Austen? (now released in a 250th Birthday Edition) and The Artful Dickens - both published by Bloomsbury Press
In a lively chat, John sheds light on the tricks, devices and styles of these two incredible writers: Jane Austen and Charles Dickens ...
And in case you haven’t heard John's previous conversation on Great Expecta...
Dominic is joined by the inimitable Prof. Emma Clery- author of The Rise of Supernatural Fiction 1762-1800 and Professor of English Literature atUppsala University, Sweden. They continue this month’s theme of the supernatural, taking you on a journey into the heart of an event that caused a sensation in Georgian London, and would inspire Dickens decades later …
The real life story of The Cock Lane Ghost set the stage fo...
The ghostly episodes continue as Dominic welcomes back the inimitable Dr. Emily Middleton who helps piece together the scattered psychological fragments that create Dickens' To Be Read at Dusk ...
Five couriers sit high up watching the sun set over snowy peaks of the St Bernard's Pass, their minds flitting from one strange unsettling anecdote to another. Ideas of premonition, mesmerism, and the powerful telepathy that ca...
Dominic is joined by the inimitable Dr. Kirstin MillsSenior Lecturer and Director of the Master of Research & Graduate Diploma of Research in the Faculty of Arts, at Macquarie University. Kirstin's recent articles include the chapter "Morphean Space and the Metaphysics of Nightmare ..." published in Gothic Dreams and Nightmares for Manchester University Press.
Their conversation flits and tumbles through the realms of 19th...
This Halloween ... actor Jonathan Broadbentreads one of the interpolated ghost stories, from The Pickwick Papers
In The Lawyer and The Ghost a somewhat disreputable young Lawyer has retired to his meagre lodgings one night and is forced to debate with something not of this world ...
If you'd like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series you can buy 'coffees' right here https:/...
This Halloween Dominicis joined by the inimitable Prof. Andrew Smith who guides us through Dickens' The Black Veil and his latest book Dickens and the Gothic (for Cambridge University Press)
Perhaps calling to mind Susan Hill’s The Woman In Black … The Black Veil begins with a young man sitting by the fire one winter’s night, with cosy thoughts of Christmas. Out of the corner of his eye the veiled...
Dominic announces a new series of Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire!🔥 and share some personal stories of haunting ...
If you'd like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series you can buy 'coffees' right here https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dominicgerrard
Thank you so much!
Host: Dominic Gerrard
Series Artwork: Léna Gibert
Original Music: Dominic Gerrard
Thank...
Dominic now to Jeff Wayne about the creation of his masterpiece The Musical Version of The War of the Worlds ...
At time of recording this multiplatinum album has sold over 16 million copies worldwide and is currently running as an Immersive Experience in London.
It features searing performances from Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott as the crazed Parson Nathaniel, and David Essex’s swaggering and delusional Artilleryman, with Jul...
Dominicspeaks to the award-winning composer Jeff Wayne about Two Cities (his Musical adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities)that opened at the Palace Theatre, in London's West End, on 27th February 1969
Despite a run of just 44 performances, Two Cities was Nominated for Best Musical at the Evening Standard Awards - with its star Edward Woodward also winning the Best Male Performance for a Musical category for his portrayal of Sydney Car...
In the July of 1844 Dickens, his wife Catherine, their five children, his sister-in-law Georgina - plus three servants and their dog Timber - left London for Italy. What followed was an extraordinary adventure for them all.
Returning to the series to talk to Dominic about his new Oxford University Press edition of Pictures From Italyis the inimitable Dr. Pete Orford also returning to read excerpts from the book is the brilliant acto...
Bonus Episode!
In which Dr. Leon Litvackrecounts Dickens' dramatic retrieval of Part 16 of the Manuscript of Our Mutual Friendfrom the swaying carriage at Staplehurst; and reveals, here for the first time, a key discovery he has made; plus the cut sections he has restored in his new Oxford University Press Edition of the novel ...
If you'd like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series yo...
Dominic is joined by Dr. Leon Litvack whose new edition of Our Mutual Friend for Oxford University Press will be published in November
Leon is a reader at Queen’s University Belfast, and is an expert analyst of Dickens’ letters, manuscripts & handwriting. As well as being the Principal Editor of the Dickens Letters Project and Joint General Editor of the Oxford Edition of Charles Dickens, he sits on the Advisory Coun...
Vincent Van Gogh was an avid reader of Dickens. Throughout his life Dickens' works provided not only a mental 'scaffold' that helped him to believe in his own mission as an artist, but also pull himself out of deep depressions ...
Here to talk to Dominic today about the powerful connection between Dickens and Van Gogh is the inimitable Carol Jacobi, Curator of British Art (1850-1915) at Tate Britain where her many exhibitions includ...
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