All language subtitles for Armandos.Tale.Of.Charles.Dickens.2012.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

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'This is Dickens World in Kent -

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'a vast tourist attraction

'built to take visitors inside
the novels of Charles Dickens.'

Hello.
Good afternoon. How are you?

Good, thank you. Who are you?
Pleased to meet you.
Mr Micawber at your service, sir.

Are you Mr Micawber?
Very good. And you are?

'Ello, sir. I'm Nancy.
Are you Nancy? Aren't you dead?

That's our famous
Great Expectations boat ride.

Great Expectations boat ride?
Indeed.

OK. Have you got the Artful Dodgems?
Have you got that?

Artful Dodgems?

May I come through?

You may, sir.
Fantastic, thank you very much,
just get in here.

'But surely there's more to Dickens
than this?

'More than just a logo attached to
television costume dramas

'and West End shows
about street urchins.'

It's so easy to label and package
Charles Dickens,

to exhibit him as
some sort of Victorian showman,

a one-off, a dazzling talent like
Harry Houdini or Charlie Chaplin,

a superstar from the past.

I want to show that the work
of Charles Dickens

isn't just quality entertainment
for a long-dead audience.

Dickens's world of the imagination
is as complex and as dark

and as sophisticated
as any modern city,

and the characters he creates
are as real

and as psychologically driven

as the inhabitants
of any urban landscape today.

And that's why I believe
that the true Dickensian world...

is our world.

'Dickens, the 19th-century novelist,
speaks to us now.

'And I want to gauge
his impact and relevance

'by talking not to literary critics
and biographers but to his readers.'

'I'll meet those who Dickens
makes laugh.'

"It was difficult
to enjoy her society

"without becoming conscious
of a smell of spirits."

So what he's basically saying
is this woman stank of alcohol!

'The readers
he stops in their tracks.'

The thing is, he has
a very driving narrative.

He's got to get where he's going.
But along the way something
like that will just BOOM!

'And those who suggest
that Dickensian characters
are still living among us now.'

Some of it's timeless, yeah.

And you see it all the time.
Not me, obviously...

No, me, definitely!

'Before the bestsellers
of Dan Brown and JK Rowling,

'before the literary fireworks
of Ian McEwan and Martin Amis,

'there was the spectacularly
popular

'and critically applauded writing
of Charles Dickens.

'Dickens was the complete writer.'

He wrote 15 novels, he invented 989
brand-new characters,

he edited newspapers and magazines.

He wrote speeches, plays,
short stories, pamphlets, letters.

Sometimes he did all these things
simultaneously.

Now, I haven't read all of these.
I doubt many people have.

But I don't think we should be
put off by the sheer volume of
Dickens's output, or his reputation.

The great thing about him is that
he had such a distinctive tone,

such a unique style
that was recognisable

as he tackled the big issues -

crime, death, poverty, riches,
guilt, fear.

And I think you can join him
at any point.

Each novel to me feels like
a continuation of all the rest.

Every character just one inhabitant
in a virtual world
created in his imagination.

So I think the best way to tackle
Dickens is to choose your point...

and dive in!

"To resume the consideration of the
curious question of refreshment..."

'Comedian Phill Jupitus
didn't know any Dickens

'until he decided to perform a show
at the Edinburgh Festival.

'There he would read out loud works
he was seeing for the first time.'

"I turn my disconsolate eye on the
refreshments that are to restore me.

"I find that I must either
stuff into my delicate organisation

"a currant pin cushion
which I know will swell

"into immeasurable dimensions
when it's got there.

"Or I must extort from an iron-bound
quarry with a fork,

"as if I were farming
an inhospitable soil,

"some glutinous lumps of gristle
and grease called pork pie."

I just found myself forgetting
I was at a gig. And doing it live.

He'd give reign to the most
inconsequential of thoughts.

He'd expand on ideas and they
kind of build through the pieces.

You can almost sense
his thought process as he writes.

Can I just take one which is, um...
Mugby Junction.

Now not many people
know Mugby Junction.

Mugby Junction's
one of the latest...

It's not really a novel as such,
is it?

No, it's just a story about a man
who arrives at this train station,
Mugby Junction,

which becomes a bit of a sort of
allegory for where he's at in life.

"He spoke to himself.
There was no-one else to speak to.

"Perhaps though, had there been
anyone else to speak to,

"he would have preferred
to speak to himself.

"Speaking to himself, he spoke
to a man within five years of 50
either way,

"who had turned grey too soon,
like a neglected fire.

"A man with many indications on him,
of having been much alone."

Oooh!

And it's just...

You just stop, and it's just....

What's the fire thing,
"like a decaying..."?

It was, "A man turned grey too soon,
like a neglected fire."

A neglected fire!

He has a driving narrative in the
pieces. Got to get where he's going.

Along the way, something like
that will just...BOOM!

Stops you in your tracks.
The other thing I find is

it's not flashy.

We have this image of Dickens with
big, long sentences, very florid,

and it's not like that at all.

A lot of it is very simple,

and suddenly there's a phrase there
that just...

It's very difficult to go two pages
without a phrase... Yes.

Just giving you a little... Yeah.

I mean, emotionally, I felt...

cos when I read him,
it was three years ago, I was 45...

I felt like an idiot for not having
picked any up before.

Dickens was born in 1812.

By the time he was 30,

he was the most famous writer
in the world.

By then, he'd made
his name and his fortune

with the comic tale
The Pickwick Papers,

and with Oliver Twist,

the rags to riches story of
the orphan who asks for more.

He wrote his novels
in monthly instalments,

keeping his massive audience hungry
for each arresting plot development
or extraordinary new character.

He delighted them with
A Christmas Carol,

and in later novels
such as Hard Times,

Little Dorrit and Bleak House,

he secured his reputation
as a champion of social justice,

with his vivid and angry portraits
of the condition of Britain.

But there's one novel that gives us
the most tantalising insight

into the life of Dickens himself...

..and that's David Copperfield,

the book he described as
his favourite child.

Dickens wrote,

"Of all my books,
I like this the best."

David Copperfield is the most
autobiographical of his novels -

it tells the story of a young boy
going through a troubled childhood,

but on to become
a successful writer.

Now I think the closeness
of the subject

and the intimacy of the style

together shine a special light
on the rest of his work.

'In the novel, David's childhood
starts as a happy one.

'Though his father is dead,
he's loved by his mother

'and cosseted by their maid,
Peggotty.

'But we constantly see
through the child's eyes

'as soon the world
turns dark around him.'

I remember when I started reading
David Copperfield
for the very first time.

It was one of those books that,

as it says in the blurb,
you cannot put down.

I was drawn into it
and the reason was,

it has the most accurately
sustained piece of writing

from the perspective of a child
that I've ever come across.

Here's the start
of Chapter Two, I Observe.

This is the very young
David Copperfield

aged about what...two, three...

looking up at what's around him,
trying to describe his surroundings,

his mother, and Peggotty,
the family maid.

"The first objects", he says, "that
assume a distinct presence before me

"as I look far back
into the blank of my infancy,

"are my mother with her pretty hair
and youthful shape,

"and Peggotty, with no shape at all

"And eyes so dark they seemed
to darken

"the whole neighbourhood
in her face."

That's that thing of children,

remembering things much larger
than they were in reality.

"Eyes so dark

"that they seemed to darken the
whole neighbourhood in her face,

"and cheeks and arms so hard and red

"that I wondered the birds didn't
peck her in preference to apples."

Again, everything is very simple
at this stage.

Dickens the great wordsmith,
the literary showman,

is actually putting everything back
into his box of tricks,

and shutting that box tight.

So everything is in monosyllables.

"Cheeks and arms so hard and red."

And then that little image,

the bird pecking at her cheeks
in preference to apples.

Of course, that's an image a child
would understand. The bird pecking.

He wouldn't have anything
more sophisticated

to compare Peggotty's cheeks to.

'But David's idyll shatters
as his mother remarries

'to a cold and heartless man
called Mr Murdstone.

'And now David can only see
harshness wherever he gazes.'

"I could not look at her,

"I could not look at him.
I knew quite well

"that he was looking at us both.

"And I turned to the window
and looked out there at some shrubs

"that were drooping their heads
in the cold."

The young Copperfield is the camera
in this picture,

and everything we're perceiving,

we're reading about, is done,
as it's perceived, through his eyes.

"And I turned to the window..."

and that thing of childhood
where as you grow up,

if you receive bad news,

if there's been
a sudden dramatic moment,

you instantly recall
the first image you saw at the time,

an image that, no matter how
insignificant it appears,

still burns there in your heart
with significance.

This whole process in these first
few chapters of David Copperfield

is not just a fascinating story from
the perspective of the little boy

but actually quite a modern,
experimental exercise in language.

He's not like a serious novelist,

who would very consciously
set out to impress us

with the stylistic mastery he has

over a description
of child psychology.

Instead he wants to write himself
out of the picture.

He doesn't want us to feel
written at by an author.

Instead he wants us to be
pulled in to the work,

and to watch it and observe it from
the perspective of the little boy,

sitting low, on the floor,
at the world around him.

'Dickens's lifelong sympathy
with the way children think

'actually affected
everything he wrote.'

The very first time I took
my son to see a film at the cinema,

afterwards I asked him
what he thought.

He said it was very good, just like
a DVD you could only see once.

And it's that ability as a child
to describe something

no way an adult would, that Dickens
always carried around with him.

'Dickens wrote children's stories
for adults.

'He stressed the power
of the imagination,

'the power a child has in abundance,

'as a way of describing
and reacting to

'the world he saw around us.

'Even as he matured as a writer,
his novels read like fairy tales,

'of heroes growing up with
wicked step-parents, running away,

'gaining vast fortunes,
being lost and found.'

'In 1849 Dickens published the first
instalment of David Copperfield.

'Like all his novels,
it was released as a serial,

'issued in 19 monthly parts.

'Dickens was writing only weeks
before his audience
was reading him.'

'The original manuscript is housed

'in the National Art Library at
London's Victoria and Albert Museum,

'and I looked to see if it betrayed
any signs of the relentless pressure

'Dickens must have been under.'

Am I allowed to touch them?

Yes, please. Please do. Open it.

It starts off with
part number three,

the first volume
had the first two parts.

"Personal history and experience
of David Copperfield.

"Chapter seven."

I'm seeing if I can read it.

"School began in earnest that day."

It is quite...
This would go off to the printers?

This would go to the printers.
They could decipher this? Yes!

But look at this,
this is a mess, isn't it?

This is in fact, extremely,

really neat...

Really? ..And clear.

You can tell that
because the compositors,

when they set from these manuscripts
were extremely accurate.

So he's writing these novels
almost live, in a way.

People are watching him write,
in that he doesn't quite know...

He has a rough idea
where he wants to go,

but doesn't quite know
how it's going to end.

He seems to have been
fairly disciplined.

He had a copy date
of the 20th of each month.

And he was normally
two, three weeks in advance.

Really? So he was relatively good at
keeping up with...

The idea of being two weeks in
advance of any writing deadline,

to me is completely alien,
I have to say!

I don't want to read too much
analysis into the handwriting

but I get the sense of a very, very
restless, unsettled personality.

You know, having been a lifelong
Dickens fan, to have this...

I am like a kid in a sweetie shop
at the moment.

But a sweetie shop run by a guy
who makes bloody good sweets.

'Dickens started his writing career
first as a court reporter

'and then as a parliamentary
sketch writer.

'He was trained to be fast, vivid
and entertaining.

'So it's no surprise when he had
his first piece of fiction published
in 1833, when he was just 21,

'that it was in the form of
a comic short story.

'And more, much more comedy,
was to follow.'

As a kid I was two things -
I was very bookish, you know,

I loved reading, and I was also into
comedy, but I always regarded those
two worlds as being quite separate.

Literature was serious,
and for the funny stuff,

I spent all my money on comics
and listening to great radio shows

like Hitchhikers' Guide
To The Galaxy.

And then I remember when I got
hooked on Dickens, I picked up
The Old Curiosity Shop, as you do,

and very early on,
I came across this episode

where there's a great guy
called Dick Swiveller

who has no money. And he's
in a pub, and he's bought a meal.

And he says to the innkeeper
he'll come round later that night

and pay for it,
and writes something down in a book.

And his friend says to him,

"Are you just writing down a
reminder to come back this evening?"

and Dick says, "Not exactly, Fred.

"I enter into this little book the
names of the streets that I can't
go down while the shops are open.

"This dinner today closes Long Acre.

"I bought a pair of boots
in Great Queen Street last week

"and made that no thoroughfare too.

"There's only one avenue
to the Strand left open now,

"and I shall have to stop up that
tonight with a pair of gloves."

So what Dick Swiveller's doing
is he's got a mental map of London

and he's just crossing out
the streets he can't move down,

because he owes people money there.

And I was thinking, that's funny,
but it reminds me of something,

it reminds me of a stand-up
comedy routine or a sketch,

or that Charlie Chaplin scene
where he's quite happily
eating his own shoes

because he has no food left
and no money to buy some.

And that for me was a great
eye-opener about Dickens.

I think we're put off by this notion
we have of Charles Dickens

as this great Victorian novelist,
because it implies he's serious,

whereas in fact I think he's the
finest comedian we've ever produced.

'By that I mean, much comedy
today is still conditioned

'by the way Dickens wrote it
in the 19th century,

'and comedy writers and performers
today owe a huge debt to him.

'Other people who work in comedy
think so too.'

There's this thing about Mrs Gamp.

Oh, Mrs Gamp who's the nurse
in Martin Chuzzlewit.

This sentence where he goes,

"It was difficult to
enjoy her society

"without becoming conscious
of a smell of spirits."

So what he's basically saying is
"This woman stank of alcohol".

The way he puts it, "It was
difficult to enjoy her company!"

But Mrs Gamp, again, is kind of like
a character from Psychoville,

she's this small, squat woman.

What you can do is, you can put
a bottle of spirits on the side.

She says, "I may take a drink.
Or I may not.

"It just depends on
how I'll be disposed."

She'll drink the whole lot
is what will happen.

I'm devoted to Pickwick Papers.
And Mr Jingle.

He's a complete conman. A real con.

And he speaks very fast
so nobody else can get a word in.

Bang-bang-bang, like a machine gun.
He's a very funny character.

It's desperately dark, as well.
Like...

It's a man talking about how
a woman's head was knocked off

by the top of an arch, in front of
her children and then he's going,

"She couldn't even eat a sandwich.
She didn't have a head any more."

" 'Heads, heads,
take care of your heads',
cried a loquacious stranger

"as they came out under the low
archway, which in those days formed
the entrance to the coach yard.

"Terrible place - dangerous work -
other day - five children -
mother - tall lady -

"eating sandwiches -
forgot the arch - crash - knock -
children looked round -

"mother's head off -
sandwich in her hand -

"no mouth to put it in -
head of a family off -

"shocking - shocking. Didn't keep
a sharp look out enough, eh?
Eh, sir? Eh?"

THEY LAUGH

That's Peston
on about 17 espressos.

THEY LAUGH

Yes! That's spot on.

It's that sense of the rhythms
of colloquialisms
and the way people speak.

Because in reality,
we don't finish our sentences
and we all interrupt each other.

That's the performer in him.

There's a bit from Bleak House here
with a little child roadsweeper.

"She says to me, she says,
'Are you the boy at the inquich?'

"I says 'Yes', she says to me,
she says, 'You could show me all
them places'. I says, 'Yes, I can',

"she says to me, 'Do it'
and I done it, and she give me
a sovereign and I hooked it.

"I hadn't much of the sovereign
neither. I had to pay five bob
down in old Tom Alone's

" 'fore they'd square it to give me
change and then a young man thieved
another fiver while I was asleep.

"Another boy thieved ninepence."

I'm half expecting you now to go
"Am I bovvered?"

Exactly, yeah.

'Dickens's comedy still seems fresh,

'but it's the dark and serious
nature of his themes

'that make his novels
seem surprisingly modern.

'And there's no more dominant theme
in those novels...than money.'

'In Dickens's world, heroes and
villains are obsessed with money -

'how to get it, what to do with it,

'and above all,
the terror of losing it.

'A huge fear of debt and poverty

'can be traced back
to Dickens's own childhood.

'His father, John Dickens,
was forever in debt,

'and at one point endured
the public shame

'of being sent to debtors' prison.'

'Charles was taken out of school,
and aged 12, was sent to work

'in a shoe polish warehouse
to feed his family.

'The experience haunted him
for the rest of his life.'

'When he came to write
David Copperfield,

'Dickens poured many
of these feelings

'into the serial debtor
Mr Micawber.'

Now, Mr Micawber is
such a brilliant character.

I think we have this image of him
from TV adaptations

of being just a sort of gregarious,
fat, rather optimistic chap who,

even though he has no money, is
always talking about his expectation

that something is
just around the corner,

something is going to turn up.

It's so different
when you read the book.

There, it's a much more
sophisticated, painful read,

because Micawber can start off
by being very affectionate

and outgoing
and full of high spirits,

and there's a genuine affection
between him and Copperfield.

But within seconds, as soon
as the realisation comes upon him

of the debt that he carries,

Micawber is reduced to being
an almost childlike, self-pitying

little creature, railing about how
he's doomed for the debtors' prison.

He starts making knife-cutting
gestures across his throat

and talks about
what a tragic figure he is.

And then he can pull himself
together

and start singing songs
and dancing the hornpipe.

It's a very realistic
and affectionate,

and yet frustrated look
at the twisted poison

that can be injected into
someone's personality

by this awareness of debt.

It's so hard to read,

you almost have to put your fingers
across your eyes as you read it.

This looks like Julius Caesar.

That is Julius Caesar.
That was the Leeds Playhouse. Right.

'For 63-year-old actor Ian Hurley,

'Dickens's portrait of Micawber
has a special significance.

'When work dried up,
Ian found himself in debt,

'owing the bank £40,000.'

Mr Micawber, you can see that
when he has these highs and lows

and when someone has a debt problem,
it really doesn't go...

It, it... You see how
he's trying to escape from it.

Well, here's the passage
which describes that sense
of being up and down

that goes through Mr Micawber.

"It was nothing at all unusual
for Mr Micawber to sob violently

"at the beginning of one of these
Saturday night conversations

"and sing about Jack's delight
being his lovely Nan
towards the end of it.

"I've known him come home to supper
with a flood of tears

"and a declaration that
nothing was now left but a jail

"and go to bed making a calculation
of the expense

"of putting bow windows on the house
in case anything turned up, which
was his favourite expression."

It will give you a high and a low
and can make you cry.

You can even be driving along
in your car and you think about this
and you cry. But to....

Why the high?
Where does the high come from?

Well, the high is
the telling yourself that it's OK.

Because of the presence of the worry
of debt you will take highs from it

to remove the... Let's say
to remove the depression of it.

And I think this is where
the highs come and the crying
and the emotion.

And he does great flourishes.

He suddenly... When he's trying to
enjoy himself

he enjoys himself very, very
noisily and energetically,

as if to show there's nothing wrong.

And that's very interesting.

To show there's nothing wrong,
to show that it's OK.

"It's OK, yeah, fine, come and
have another drink! It's fine."

And someone says to you, "You look
a bit sad, you look a bit tense."

You say, "No, no, no,
I'm fine, it's OK!"

And the other thing he does
is sometimes pretend that
he's paying stuff back,

but he'll know
he's running up a debt

and with a great flourish
he'll write an I-O-U.

I think that's wonderful.
I think it's a wonderful idea.

I just wish I could write a few
I-O-Us to the bank and say,

"Well, that's you paid!"

'Micawber is a brilliant creation
on his own.

'But what Dickens also does
is show how debt spreads
like an infection,

'so that it extends its hold
beyond Micawber

'on to anybody who he befriends.'

Like David Copperfield's
friend Tommy Traddles

who sells a number of objects
to the pawn shop
to raise some money for Micawber.

And then one day Traddles decides
there's one thing he really wants
back from that pawn shop,

a little decorative pot
given to him by his girlfriend.

'As the pawnbroker will
only sell it back to Traddles

'at an inflated price, he begs
Peggotty to buy it back for him.

'Leaving Traddles himself waiting
anxiously around the corner.'

'At first Peggotty
leaves empty-handed,

'but then the broker
calls her back.'

'And finally she returns,
triumphant.'

It's like a scene from a film,
it's like a farce,

where money is reduced to something
very small, very specific

and yet very, very meaningful.

'When Dickens wrote
David Copperfield

'his public image was of a restless
but nonetheless contented
family man.'

'He'd been married to
Catherine Dickens for 13 years

'and with their brood of
eight children it seemed like
they had a happy home.'

'Privately, though, Dickens
developed misgivings about
Catherine's suitability as a wife

'and there were quiet strains
within the marriage.'

'In David Copperfield
we can sense Dickens's own
ambivalence towards his marriage

'in his portrayal of David's
relationship with his wife, Dora.'

'Impulsive and immature,
David is at first blind to the fact

'that Dora is wrong for him.'

'But wiser friends and family can
see trouble coming from the start.'

Here's a scene with David
and his aunt Betsey Trotwood,

and the loudest sound in this whole
passage is of Betsy Trotwood
biting her lip.

"So you fancy yourself in love,
do you?"

"Fancy, Aunt?"
I exclaimed as red as I could be.

"I adore her with my whole soul."

"Dora indeed!" returned my Aunt.

"And you mean to say
the little thing
is very fascinating, I suppose?"

"My dear Aunt, no-one could form
the least idea what she is."

"Ah! And not silly?" said my aunt.

"Silly, Aunt?"

"Not light-headed?"
"Light-headed, Aunt?"

I could only repeat
this daring speculation.

"Well, well, I only ask.
I don't depreciate her.

"Poor little couple.
And so you think you were formed
for one another

"and are to go through
a party-supper-table kind of life,

"like two pretty pieces
of confectionary?

"Do you, Trot?"

It's a difficult, uncomfortable read

as you go through this
plotline in the book.

It's a daring, sophisticated,
brutal analysis

of two young people
committing nuptial suicide.

'It's almost as if Dickens
was toying with the boundaries

'that separated his private life
from public gaze.

'In 1859, he and Catherine
had another child, a girl,

'and they called her...Dora.'

Meanwhile the fictional Dora
was proving far, far too much

for the novel to bear.

The love story was staining
the rest of the novel

with a mood of bitterness and guilt.

The marriage between Dora and David
had to come to an end.

But in Victorian times it would have
been improper for it to end

with divorce or even separation.

So Dickens has Dora fall ill

and quite suddenly
and quite conveniently die.

Now, his daughter was born a week
before Dora is killed in the novel

and at the time Dickens
writes to his wife Catherine,

"I'm uncertain of my movements,
for after another splitting day

"I still have Dora to kill.

"I mean the Copperfield Dora!"

SEAGULLS CAW

'This is Broadstairs
on the Kent coast.'

'Dickens often brought
his family here in the summer

'to escape from the crowds
and heat of London.'

'The year he was finishing
David Copperfield

'they stayed at Fort House,
since renamed Bleak House.'

'It's occasionally
open to the public

'but it's also home
to Richard and Jackie Hilton.

'And they have a sometimes
unorthodox take

'on the life of Charles Dickens.'

We're just going into
the Charles Dickens dining room...

Right. ..which is where he used to,
um...from all reports,

have a seven
or eight-course breakfast.

That would finish me off,
that would.

I'd be in bed for an hour after.
Yeah, me too.

And no doubt people come
and ask you all sorts of questions.

Well, they do, yeah,
but I don't know that much.

Only that he was married
with seven children.

Nine. Sorry, nine children.

THEY LAUGH

But he had quite a few women
on the side. Oh, did he now?

Well, I know about one. You reckon
there were all sorts going on?

Yeah, for sure.

So this would have been
living quarters as well. Yeah.

I mean, did you know much about
Dickens before the house?
Nothing at all.

And how do you feel now,
six years on?

Do you feel there's
this other presence around?
This life that you've....

Well, you can hear soldiers
sometimes.

Hear soldiers?
You can hear soldiers,
Cos this was called Fort House

and we did contact Most Haunted

cos I thought it would be
good for people to know.

A Christmas Special! Yeah!

And this is at night? At night.
But the voices are in the daytime.

What voices?
Where do these voices come from?

You hear a woman's voice,
and she'll say, "Not again!"
in a very posh voice.

Let's get out. Let's...
This is extraordinary!
I didn't know any of this.

Where are we going? In here? This is
Charles Dickens's bedroom. Uh-huh?

Um...

And I gather there's a cellar,
someone was saying?

Yes, that's right. And what did
Dickens use the cellar for, then?

I think mainly probably
some of his staff slept in it.

But I think he also used it
for contraband.

Contraband? Contraband, yeah.

When he died,

there were two 50-gallon drums -
barrels, rather - of tobacco

and 2,000 bottles of brandy
found in the cellar.

Oh, that's completely
coloured my view of him

as being a respectable
member of society!

Now, look at this.

This is where Dickens wrote.

This is where he finished
David Copperfield.

His little airy nest,
as he called it.

And it's about the size of a nest,
it is quite small.

I'm surprised how small it is.

It's almost like he forced himself
to sit down and write.

It's the Victorian equivalent
of a writer

switching off his mobile phone
and disconnecting the internet

to avoid all distractions here.

But here is where this whole room

forces you to look out
towards the sea.

In David Copperfield, he describes
towards the end of the novel,

a gargantuan storm scene
that kills several major
characters in the novel.

I won't reveal the names,
that would spoil things.

And Dickens himself found these
quite traumatic scenes,

not just in the storm, but as
the novel reached its conclusion,

quite difficult to finish.

He says he was nearly "clean knocked
over" by the writing of it.

At one point he says,
"It defeated me."

In actual fact, those scenes were
some of the most powerful scenes
that Dickens had written to date.

And he did it here, at this desk.

Let's see
if I can get some inspiration.

Maybe for my next link.

As I look out towards the sea,
just drink it all in.

'Dickens's popularity rested not
just on his characters and stories,

'but also on his satire.'

'His early works savage
the Victorian governing classes'

'appalling treatment
of its dispossessed.'

'And as he wrote more and more,

'he poured derision on
ever vaster sections of society.'

'As Dickens grew more successful,
he was welcomed into
the British establishment,

'and the closer
he looked at that establishment,'

the surer he was
that it was rotten to the core.

And that's why,
in the later novels,

it's this world that he wants to
show us up close.

Welcome to Dickensopolis.

'Today, Dickens's satire
still stings.

'In the novel Little Dorrit,
he caricatures

'the way the country is run by
"the Circumlocution Office." '

"The Circumlocution Office
was the most important department
under government.

"Its finger was in
the largest public pie

"and in the smallest public tart.

"If another gunpowder plot had been
discovered half an hour before
the lighting of the match,

"nobody would have been justified
in saving the parliament

"until there had been half a score
of boards, half a bushel of minutes,

"several sacks of official memoranda
and a family vault full of

"ungrammatical correspondence on the
part of the Circumlocution Office."

Dickens's description
of bureaucracy run riot

really set the template

for any satirical take on government
written ever since.

In this, we have the beginnings
of Big Brother

in George Orwell's
Nineteen Eighty-Four,

Sir Humphrey Appleby
in Yes, Minister

and even the obstructiveness
and obtuseness

that Harry Potter meets
from the Ministry of Magic.

'One of Dickens's favourite targets
was the law.'

'The novel Bleak House
is set against the background

'of a disputed inheritance
and the infamous, long-running

'Chancery lawsuit
of Jarndyce v Jarndyce.'

The case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce

is based on a long-running
Chancery dispute

that I'm sure Tony Arlidge has at his
fingertips and can tell us all about.

I was in it. I appeared in it!

But that was an actual case
which I think lasted 20-odd years.

'I met Judge John Lafferty,

'the first visually impaired judge
on the bench,

'senior barrister
Antony Arlidge QC

'and Ellis Sareen,
also a barrister, to see

'how well they thought Dickens
made his case,

'and whether there's still a case
to answer.'

We also need to remember
in all of this

that he has got this fantastic
vividness of phrase. He has.

When the Lord Chancellor comes in,

all the barristers in their white
wigs and black gowns get up and bow

like "so many pianoforte keys".

Even now, there are days in the
Courts of Chancery where there are

quite a large number of barristers
present at one time.

And in just one little phrase,
he absolutely encapsulates that.

Do you feel that Dickens presents

a fair portrait
of how the law operated
at the time that he was writing?

He's out to pillory the way
in which institutions can evolve

so that they're there
to serve as much

the interests of their practitioners,

to the detriment of the vulnerable,
the poor and the needy,

as they are to right
the wrongs in society.

Central to it, actually, is
something that remains a problem -

that very often, particularly
with small civil claims,

the cost of the legal proceedings
is bound to exceed

the damages that are obtained.

Yes. In the time of Bleak House,

there were lawyers who prolonged
litigation for their own advantage.

There have been ever since,
and there always will be.

That's always going to be a problem.

One thing I do want to ask is,

when you read these accounts
of the law,

do you feel implicated
or part of that?

There's always a tendency...
for example, politicians looking at
The Thick Of It would tell me

"Oh, I know someone just like that."
It's never themselves,

but it's always
someone that they know.

I just wonder how you feel?

It's a fair cop, guv.
You've got me bang to rights.

Some of it's timeless. Yeah...
and you see it all the time.

Not me, obviously.

The great thing about it is
that it is hugely entertaining.

That's right, the great thing
about Dickens is his theatricality.

It's a series of vivid scenes.

And how about today?
If Dickens were writing today, then,

what in the way the system works
now, is there anything you think

he would immediately seize on?

Oh, I don't think
he'd be short of material.

'It's not just in our institutions
that we can sometimes spot

'the timelessness
of Dickens's attacks.'

'The characters who dominate his
institutions can seem familiar too.

'Today, we may have the likes of
Mr Murdoch, but in Little Dorrit,

'Dickens gives us a Mr Merdle.'

"Mr Merdle was immensely rich;
a man of prodigious enterprise;

"a Midas who turned
all he touched to gold.

"He was in everything good,
from banking to building.

"He was in Parliament, of course.
He was in the City necessarily.

"The weightiest of men had said
to projectors

"What name have you got?
Have you got Merdle?"
And the reply being in the negative

had said
"Then I won't look at you."

The whole novel is a depiction
partly of this figure.

One figure, Merdle,
moving through society,

and first the politicians
and then the media

and then the law
all come to pay homage to him.

But he himself is a strange shadowy
figure whose bank collapses,

whose money fritters away and who
ends up killing himself in a bath.

It's a frightening and sadly
familiar depiction

of the whole of British society

converging around one man
who tries to control it,

and in the end...imploding.

Now, surely something
as horrific as that,

150 years ago,
couldn't happen today.

I mean, we know so much more now,
don't we?

'It wasn't just as a novelist

'that Dickens expressed
his views on society.

'As a journalist,
and then as a magazine editor,

'he had the chance to publish
his observations on everything.

'And he fed his enormous appetite
for the detail of life

'by taking long walks
almost every day,

'regularly clocking up to 20 miles.'

'As he walked, he observed
every little oddity -

'a weird play of light,

'or the strange bend of a nose
on a passer-by.'

'And he was most inspired
by the walks he took at night.'

There's a fantastic essay that
he wrote called "Night Walks"

in which he describes wandering over
to an insane asylum,

Bethlehem Hospital,
a house full of lunatics.

And he goes there because he has
a particular fancy in his head.

"Are not the sane and the insane

"equal at night
as the sane lie adreaming?"

"Are not all of us outside this
hospital who dream more or less

"in the condition of those inside it
every night of our lives?"

Basically, we're as mad
as the people inside at night,

by what goes on inside our head
in our dreams.

"Said an afflicted man to me

"when I was last in a hospital
like this,

" 'Sir, I can frequently fly!'

"I was half-ashamed to reflect
that so could I, by night.

"Said a woman to me
on the same occasion,

" 'Queen Victoria
comes to dine with me,

" 'and Her Majesty and I dine
off peaches and macaroni
in our nightgowns.'

"Could I refrain from reddening
with consciousness when I remembered

"the amazing royal parties
I myself had given at night?"

That's what I love about Dickens,
his ability to come up

with a conclusion
or make an observation

you'd think would be bizarre,

but actually, when you hear it,
seems perfectly natural.

That's why I think the night
plays such a prominent role

in his writing, because it gives him
this ability

to take those two worlds,
the everyday and the familiar

and the unfamiliar,
the dark and the mysterious,

and superimpose them
on each other simultaneously,

so that throughout his writing,

those two worlds are weaving
in and out of each other,

so at no one point
do you know exactly where you stand.

'All sorts of human pathologies
intrigued Dickens,

'and David Copperfield includes
an extraordinary character

'who suffers from delusions.'

'But instead
of being shut up in an asylum,

'he's been taken in
by David's Aunt Betsey.

'He's the rather marvellous
Mr Dick.'

'Mr Dick is one of the strangest,
most peculiar characters

'I've ever encountered,

'not just in a Dickens novel,
but in any novel.

'For most of his life,
he's been writing a project'

which he calls The Memorial.

We never quite get to the bottom
of what The Memorial is.

It's this very nebulous historical
document that he's trying to write,

but his work on a daily basis
is interrupted by thoughts

in his head about the execution
of King Charles I.

These thoughts torture
and torment him,

and the only thing he can do to get
this these thoughts of the execution
of Charles I out of his head

is to write them down
on big pieces of paper,

to gather those bits of paper up and
to fashion a paper kite out of them

and to go outside
and fly the kite in the air.

Now, when I describe it like that,

you might think that sounds
so deranged and bizarre

that it's unbelievable, and yet
when you read David's account

of his relationship with Mr Dick,

it suddenly seems believable.

"I used to fancy as I sat by him
of an evening on a green slope

"and saw him watch the kite
high in the quiet air

"that it lifted his mind
out of its confusion

"and bore it into the skies.

"As he wound the string in
and it came lower and lower down

"out of the beautiful light
till it fluttered to the ground

"and lay there like a dead thing,

"he seemed to wake gradually
out a dream,

"and I remembered to have seen him
take it up

"and look about him in a lost way,

"as if they had both come down
together,

"so that I pitied him
with all my heart."

The truth is, we're not really
looking at some grotesque eccentric,

exaggerated for our amusement.

With Mr Dick,
we're watching a quite accurate

and heartrendingly real portrayal
of someone with a mental illness.

In fact, some have commented
with the benefit of hindsight

that Dickens's own manic behaviour
may have indicated

signs of an element of bipolarity
in his personality.

Now, whatever the truth of that is,
you can't help but feel

that Dickens himself saw the world
in this unique way.

He even described, in a letter,
his own imagination as an infirmity,

a tendency to fancy or perceive
relations between things

that are not apparent generally.

Which is what Mr Dick does.

I really do think
it's no exaggeration to say

that Mr Dick is a heightened version
of Mr Dickens.

'In 1850, as he finished
David Copperfield,

'Dickens was still in control

'not only of his fanciful,
but also his darker thoughts.

'But this didn't last.

'Seven years later,

'what he had subconsciously
expressed in the novel

'seeped into reality,
and he left his wife.

'He then pursued a relationship

'he'd begun with a 19-year-old
actress, Ellen Ternan.'

'Yet the pressure of
keeping the liaison secret,

'together with growing panic
that his talent would desert him,

'began to make him ill.'

'But Dickens refused to slow down.

'In 1867, he embarked on
a series of public reading tours,

'determined to power on.'

This is Dickens's own annotated
reading copy of the scene

in which Sykes kills Nancy
in Oliver Twist.

And this was the highlight
of Dickens's public readings.

It had people fainting in the aisles
and running out.

And you can see
it's got his underlinings

and emphasis where he is signalling
to himself

that he's going to pause
and add dramatic action.

We've got here little marks
in the side margin. "Beckon down",

"You won't be too violent",
underlining, "murder coming".

That's a little note to himself now
to shift up another gear.

We're in the home stretch
of this bludgeoning.

And once we get up to the moment
of the murder itself,

this is turning into
quite a passionate, violent,

very physical performance here.

The annotations are now scarring
the whole of the text here.

"Action!" "Mystery!" "Terror to
the end." "Dashed out his brains!!"

Double exclamation mark at the end.

Dickens's public readings
were quite sensational.

They were the hottest ticket
in town. They were wildly popular.

People would queue up overnight.
The place would be mobbed.

It was like Lady Gaga
coming to town.

His tour of America
was quite strenuous and energetic,

and really fatigued him.
He was quite ill.

But Dickens couldn't help
but throw himself into it,

physically and mentally.

Many say that in particular,

it was his performance of the
reading of the Sykes and Nancy scene

that in the end killed him.

'In June 1870, Dickens suffered
a stroke, and died at home.

'He was 58, and he was halfway
through writing a new novel.

'It was a small,
unremarkable ending

'for a writer that had lived
such a large, remarkable life.

'But then Dickens never was
very comfortable with endings.'

'David Copperfield finishes
with a whole host of characters,
including Mr Micawber,

'sailing off to Australia
to start a new life.'

'And they succeed.
Micawber grows prosperous,

'while at home, David marries again
and lives happily ever after.'

'But this ending doesn't feel
so happy when we shut the book.'

For me, Dickens's endings
are disappointing.

I know I'm going to be
hauled over the coals

by militant Dickensian Taliban
for saying that,

but I feel that Dickens
hated finishing his novels

and his heart wasn't in it.

It's when his characters
are restless and struggling

and energetic that they're
at their most animated,

and it's when they become static
that something goes out of them.

For Dickens,
I think a happy ending is dull.

It's how people struggle to
try and attain a happy ending

that's much, much more interesting.

'It's over 170 years since Dickens
published his first novel,

'and readers still find his work
surprisingly fresh.'

The thing about Dickens is,
it stands up so well.

A lot of the humour
is entirely modern.

It is gripping.

He has great plots. He has the most
incredible characterisation,

but always with a sort of
psychological basis.

Whoever he writes about, even if
it's a sort of loathsome character

they're human beings.
He takes them warts and all.

It's like that moment in a song
when you go "Oh, yeah."

You hear a song and go,
"Oh, that's how I feel."

I said at the start
of this programme

that I thought each Dickens novel

feels like a continuation
of the rest.

Each novel gives you
a unique vision of the world

that's curiously like your own,

and yet strangely magnified
and distorted, and as a result,

Dickens makes you
read the characters around you
completely afresh.

He forces you to gaze
much more intently

at your physical surroundings
and inside,

looking at the state of your
own mental and emotional condition.

That's why Dickens's work is,
for me,

still the greatest example
in the English language

of a mind trying to engage comically
and yet honestly

with what it means
to be human.

And that's why, also,

I think the best reaction to reading
a Dickens for the very first time

is to do what
quite a lot of people do

when they read a Dickens
for the very first time,

which is to pick up a new one and
start reading that straight away.

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