Dickens characters come alive
British actress Miriam Margolyes is visiting Christchurch early next month to present her one-person show, Dickens’ Women. She talks to CHRISTOPHER MOORE about her favourite author.
Miriam Margolyes is not simply interested in Charles Dickens and his novels— she is besotted and consumed by the man and his characters, a fact that is bringing one of Britain’s best-known actresses to Christchurch early next month for a short season of her award-winning production, Dickens’ Women.
Her cast of 23 different male and female characters includes The Old Curiosity Shop’s Little Nell, loyal Mrs Micawber from David Copperfield, and the cold, reclusive Miss Havisham from Great Expectations.
Dickens’ Women combines character sketches, short readings, biographical material and commentary. It all pivots around characters from the author’s best and lesser-known fiction.
Margolyes has a special affinity for his grotesque characters, revelling in his florid satires of human frailty. Her portrayals contain rambunctious humour, poignancy and bitter sweetness.
Her face changes to reflect the situation. In a scene from Oliver Twist, when Mr Bumble proposes to his paramour, Margolyes changes from wide-lipped lust to squinting coquettishness at lightning speed.
There are also moments of high drama. As the lesbian Miss Wade from Little Dorrit, Margolyes conveys tormented love and barely controlled regret. As Bleak House’s ageing spinster, she transforms herself from a slightly crazed old dear into something strangely sinister, as Miss Flight recounts the increasingly unpleasant names of her birds.
Born in Oxford in 1941, Margolyes grew up in a Jewish family of Belarusian origin. She attended the local high school, before moving to Newnham College, Cambridge, where she began acting in her 20s with the Gay Sweatshop company and the Cambridge Footlights.
Her acting career continued after Cambridge, when her work as a voice artist caught the public’s attention. She voiced the female rabbit character in animated advertisements for Cadbury’s chocolate, and performed most of the supporting female characters in the dubbed Japanese action television series Monkey.
Her first major role in a film was a character called Elephant Ethel. She portrayed Flora Finching in the 1988 movie Little Dorrit. In 1993, she won a Bafta award for best supporting actress after playing Mrs Mingott, arguably the only light moment in Martin Scorsese’s intense adaptation of Henry James’s The Age Of Innocence.
A flow of character roles followed. She was Aunt Sponge in James and the Giant Peach, and Professor Sprout in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
She worked with Geoffrey Rush and Charlize Theron in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, and with Jeremy Irons and Michael Gambon in Being Julia. She was the Spanish Infanta in Blackadder and Queen Victoria in Blackadder’s Christmas Carol.
Throughout her varied but rewarding acting career, her fascination with Dickens has continued.
‘‘I’ve been involved with him from the moment that I first read Oliver Twist. After reading English at Cambridge, I decided that I wanted to present a show based on his books. It was an idea which had been around for a long time, but one which became a reality only after I began to work with (director) Sonia Faser.
‘‘Dickens’ Women was an idea that evolved until it was finally commissioned by the 1988 Edinburgh Festival,’’ she says.
Its original format and content have not changed since then—‘‘not one scrap since it became a one-person show more than a decade ago. I don’t intend to change anything in it. This is my statement about Dickens. I don’t talk about my work very often, but I’m very proud of something that has engaged every part of me intellectually, professionally and emotionally.’’
Margolyes offers a succinct explanation for the world’s continuing fascination with a writer who died more than 130 years ago.
‘‘Simply because he’s the best— the best writer who ever lived in any language, at any time. That’s why Dickens has survived. He speaks to the heart and the head. He’s a moralist who creates fascinating characters and plots. He has it all.
‘‘Anyone who acts in Dickens— and there have been many adaptations— finds a writer who is wonderful to work with. No doubt about it. I have favourite Dickens characters I enjoy acting. I also find myself reading his books aloud, so I always advise people not to sit next to me on trains.’’
Apart from pianist John Martin, Margolyes occupies the stage throughout the show. It can be a lonely experience, relieved, she says, by the inspiration and energy from her audience.
‘‘The audience gives me back the fuel I need to keep going. After this time, I don’t need to do much preparation. I’m so used to doing it by now. My job is to turn up by the starting time and simply do it.’’
She continues to be attracted by the author’s sense of the dramatic. He is ‘‘a wonderful scriptwriter,’’ she says. Apart from the obvious stand-out characters, such as Mrs Gamp and Fagin, there is a catalogue of major and minor personalities who erupt from the pages of his novels.
She has her favourite books, such as Little Dorritt—‘‘very dark’’— and less favourite ones—‘‘I don’t especially like Hard Times or The Pickwick Papers.’’
Confronted by a surfeit of literary riches, how did she select the characters for Dickens’ Women?
‘‘We are attempting to tell the story of the author’s life through his books, using characters who have parallels in his own life. There are also the bits we put in simply because we liked them. There are strong elements, for example, of his mother in Mrs Micawber’s character. Dora in David Copperfield refers to his first love.’’
What sort of personality emerges from Dickens’ Women?
‘‘You’ll have to go to see the show to answer that,’’ she says. ‘‘This is a question that is answered by the piece.
‘‘What audiences get by the end is what I think of Dickens. The biggest excitement comes when people tell me they had a much better time than they had expected. They assumed Dickens wouldn’t have anything that they could relate to.’’
Miriam Margolyes presents Dickens’ Women, Isaac Theatre Royal, December 4 and 5. Book at Ticketek.