12 01 Urban Family Day a Dickens Christmas at Appleton Museum of Art December 1

Charles Dickens past Mathew Brady, United states National Athenaeum

In the run-up to the bicentenary of Dickens's nascence in February 2012, BBC Radio and BBC Television will be doing the master-storyteller proud, with new productions of four of the novels, and a whole host of other programming, starting with Penelope Wilton reading five extracts from Claire Tomalin'southward extraordinary new biography - Charles Dickens - A Life.

At that place are few $.25 of fundamental and east London that Dickens didn't walk through on his epic walks, observing all of London life and working through the plots of his books.

But the road south from Camden Town, where his family lived when he was a child, to the Strand, and the Navy Pay Office in Somerset Business firm where his father worked, is 1 that two centuries later is still full of Dickens reminders.

I work at Bush House, and oftentimes walk by the Old Curiosity Shop - the slightly dilapidated cottage in Portsmouth Street which inspired one of his earliest novels. And just the other side of Kingsway is Covent Garden, where the young Dickens got lost and found himself walking right out to Whitechapel in the east end. An episode that inspired a terrifying sequence in Dombey and Son, and which also features in the starting time episode of Michael Eaton's new Radio four series Dickens in London.

Dickens was a broadcaster earlier broadcasting.

Not only did he master the technique of serialisation, with audiences desperate to catch up with the latest episode in each succeeding novel, simply he licensed phase performances of his books to coincide with publication, and finally took to halls and theatres across Great britain and the United states of america to perform his own abridged readings.

Then when the 20th Century eventually caught upwardly, and the BBC started broadcasting plays and readings, it is inappreciably surprising that Dickens took to the airwaves.

Jeremy Mortimer is a producer in BBC Radio Drama. Together with Jessica Dromgoole he has produced a new dramatisation of A Tale of Two Cities, starring Robert Lindsay and Alison Steadman, which will be broadcast beyond the Afternoon Play slots on Radio 4 the week after Christmas. He is as well producing Dickens in London for the Woman's Hour drama, for broadcast in February 2012.

The Dickens Flavour on the BBC

Book of the Week - Charles Dickens: A Life
Monday 28 November - Fri ii December 2011, 9.45am
BBC Radio iv
Claire Tomalin'south acclaimed new biography of Britain'southward bully novelist paints a portrait of an extraordinarily complex man. Abridged past Richard Hamilton and read by Penelope Wilton.

The Verb
Friday nine December, 10pm
BBC Radio three
Ian McMillan hosts a special edition of his weekly cabaret of the word before an audience at the BBC'southward Radio Theatre to celebrate the fine art of reading Dickens aloud.

Dark Waves
Wednesday 14 December, 10pm
BBC Radio 3
Philip Dodd presents a landmark edition of Radio iii's art and ideas programme, devoted to Charles Dickens as the bicentenary of his nascence approaches.

A Tale of Two Cities
Monday 26 - Friday 30 December 2011, 2.15pm
BBC Radio 4
Robert Lindsay and Alison Steadman star in a new dramatisation of Charles Dickens's classic, A Tale of Two Cities, dramatised by Mike Walker to be broadcast on Radio 4 every bit a sequence of v Afternoon Plays in the week after Christmas. Dickens's novel of the French revolution tells a story of the redemptive powers of honey in the face up of cruelty, violence and fail. With Jonathan Coy, Andrew Scott, Paul Prepare and Karl Johnson, with original music by Lennert Busch.

The Essay - The Writers' Dickens
Monday 19 - Friday 23 December, 10.45pm
BBC Radio 3
In a special series of The Essay, 5 contemporary novelists - Tessa Hadley, A Fifty Kennedy, Alexander McAll Smith, Romesh Gunesekera and Justin Cartwright - examine the craft of Dickens' prose, and reverberate on how the behemothic of British nineteenth century fiction is both a role model and a shadow looming over their own writing.

The Tale of A Tale of Two Cities
Thursday 29 Dec 2011, xi.30am
BBC Radio iv
When Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities in 1859 it was, for him at least, both 'the best of times' and 'the worst of times'. He had separated from his married woman, started a new weekly journal and was becoming increasingly recognised as a performer of his own works. For this plan, criminal offense author Frances Fyfield has been given access to those original manuscript pages, held past the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and along with the scholar Robert Patten and actor David Timson, she explores the frantic paw-writing, the ferocious self-editing and the sheer free energy of Dickens' writing.

The Mumbai Chuzzlewits
Sunday ane, eight, and xv Jan 2012, 3.00pm
BBC Radio 4
Honor-winning writer Ayeesha Menon's reworking of Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit is set amongst the Catholic community in modernistic twenty-four hours Bombay, Republic of india. Convinced his relatives are afterward his money, Martin Chuzzlewit, a wealthy old landlord, has adopted orphan girl Mary equally his carer with the agreement she will exist housed and fed as long equally he lives - but that upon his death, she will inherit nothing. Told from the indicate of view of orphan Thomas, an observer into the world of the Chuzzlewits, this is a fast-paced drama full of intrigue, romance, suspense and murder. Recorded on location in India, the cast stars Roshan Seth, Karan Pandit, Zafar Karachiwala and Nimrat Kaur.

The Mystery of the Mystery of Edwin Drood
Thursday 19 January 2012, 11.30am
BBC Radio 4
Crime writer Frances Fyfield uses the hand written manuscript of Charles Dickens' last, unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, to try and answer some of the many questions nigh the concluding days of Dickens' life and, more than peculiarly, the loose ends of this tantalising novel. This programme complements the broadcast of Gwyneth Hughes' new BBC 2 drama, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Dickens in London
Monday half dozen - Friday 10 February 2012, ten.45am
BBC Radio four
Dickens in London presents five short plays based on Charles Dickens' journalism about walking in London to tell the story of the writer's life. Adjusted by Michael Eaton, the cast stars Samuel Barnett, Alex Jennings and Antony Sher each taking their turn to play Dickens.
Following Dickens' changing relationship with the metropolis that fired his imagination, each stand-lone play takes its title from 1 of Dickens's own appellations: A Not Over-Especially-Taken-Intendance-Of-Boy; Boz; the Sparkler of Albion; the Uncommercial Traveller; and The Inimitable.
Dickens in London is part of an innovative collaboration between Film London Artists' Moving Prototype Network (FLAMIN), BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Drama. A committee for film artist Chris Newby, author Michael Eaton, and composer Neil Brand to produce a ready of cross-platform works for radio, interactive television (Red Push) and the Radio 4 website. The project is supported with a Grants for the Arts Award from Arts Council England.

More than links

• Details of the Dickens season on Radio 4
• Listen now In Our Fourth dimension: Dickens
• The Telegraph The BBC's Charles Dickens season: what's on
• The official Dickens 2012 site
• BBC History: Charles Dickens

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Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio4/2011/11/charles_dickens_on_the_bbc.html