Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire! 🔥 cover art

Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire! 🔥

By: Dominic Gerrard
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  • Summary

  • 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 🔥
    © 2024 Dominic Gerrard
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Episodes
  • The Gordon Riots: with Ian Haywood

    The Gordon Riots: with Ian Haywood
    Jun 4 2024

    Dominic is joined today by the inimitable Professor Ian Heywood, of the Centre for Inclusive Humanties at the University of Roehampton.
    Together they delve into the astonishing 'Riots of Eighty' that gripped London for a week and were brought thrillingly to life in Dickens' Barnaby Rudge ...

    Ian is a specialist in the radical politics and visual culture of the period of 1750-1850, and has published extensively on that period in books such as Bloody Romanticism: Spectacular Violence and The Politics of Representation and Queen Caroline and the Power of Caricature in Georgian England (for Palgrave); and appropriately for today The Gordon Riots: Politics, Culture and Insurrection in Late Eighteenth-Century Britain (for Cambridge University Press) …

    Reading the following excerpts in this episode is wonderful actress Hollie Hales:

    1, 2 & 16. Barnaby Rudge (C. 68 Dickens)
    3. Sketches of Popular Tumults (Craik)
    4, 5, 6, 11 & 13. The Scots Magazine (June 1780)
    7 & 10. Narrative of the late Riots and Disturbances ... (Holcroft)
    8. The Riot Act
    9. Kentish Gazette (June 1780)
    11. (Source to be inserted!)
    12. King's Proclamation
    14. Northampton Mercury (July 1780)
    15. Oxford Journal (August 1780)

    The sound of crowds, gunshots & horses in this episode were used with permission from Epidemic Sound

    Support the Show.

    If you like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series you can buy 'coffees' right here https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dominicgerrard

    Host: Dominic Gerrard
    Series Artwork: Léna Gibert
    Original Music: Dominic Gerrard

    Thank you for listening!
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    51 mins
  • DROOD ...📚 And Our Endless Attempts To End It: with Pete Orford

    DROOD ...📚 And Our Endless Attempts To End It: with Pete Orford
    May 15 2024

    Dominic is joined again by the inimitable Dr. Pete Orford for Part II of his examination of The Mystery of Edwin Drood ...

    Pete’s book Edwin Drood: Charles Dickens’ Unfinished Novel And Our Endless Attempts To End It … (Pen & Sword books) is our guide throughout. It is a hugely entertaining read where scholarly citations and tomfoolery combine with vibrant illustrations by Alys Jones … there is a link purchase this in the description.

    And reading extracts today, it is an honour to welcome the fantastic actors Joseph Chance and Dan Wheeler together they are part of a quartet known as The Apocalypse Players: an award-winning podcast where role-playing and improvisation combine to create immersive stories for eager listeners each week.

    Dominic also asks AI to try and write an ending to Edwin Drood with some truly hilarious results!

    Support the Show.

    If you like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series you can buy 'coffees' right here https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dominicgerrard

    Host: Dominic Gerrard
    Series Artwork: Léna Gibert
    Original Music: Dominic Gerrard

    Thank you for listening!
    Show More Show Less
    41 mins
  • Mrs Dickens: with Emily Howes

    Mrs Dickens: with Emily Howes
    Apr 11 2024
    Dominic is joined by the inimitable Emily Howes, author of The Painters Daughters, who is currently writing her second book, Mrs Dickens, all about the life of Catherine Hogarth and her marriage to Charles Dickens …

    Emily is an alumna of Cambridge University, where she was a member of the famous Footlights. After gaining a First in English, she studied Lecoq at the London School of Performing Arts. She then went on to create work for theatre, radio and television. Highlights including two series of her show The Ladies BBC Radio 4, and performing in Tim Minchin’s Rocking On for BBC Radio 2. Emily is also a recipient of the Hans Cohn Scholarship for the study of existential pyscotherapy …

    Support the Show.

    If you like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series you can buy 'coffees' right here https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dominicgerrard

    Host: Dominic Gerrard
    Series Artwork: Léna Gibert
    Original Music: Dominic Gerrard

    Thank you for listening!
    Show More Show Less
    36 mins
Art Literary History & Criticism
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