Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire! 🔥 cover art

Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire! 🔥

Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire! 🔥

By: Dominic Gerrard
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About this listen

 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 🔥 © 2025 Dominic Gerrard Art Literary History & Criticism
Episodes
  • (Encore!) BLEAK HOUSE 📚: with Stephen Fry

    (Encore!) BLEAK HOUSE 📚: with Stephen Fry
    Jul 15 2025

    Ahead of a new series Dominic re-shares the most popular episode of this show so far! Bleak House with the inimitable Stephen Fry who takes the listener on an intricate journey through the fog and mystery of Dickens' thrilling masterpiece.

    And reading extracts from Esther's narrative is the brilliant Sally Scott

    And here is a link to Miriam Margolyes' unabridged audiobook of Bleak House mentioned in the episode


    Support the show

    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 you for listening!
    Show More Show Less
    49 mins
  • GEORGE SILVERMAN'S EXPLANATION 📚: with Emily Middleton

    GEORGE SILVERMAN'S EXPLANATION 📚: with Emily Middleton
    May 16 2025

    Hot on the heels of Dominic's audiobook of George Silverman's Explanation comes the discussion with Dr. Emily Middleton (formerly Bell) … who we’ve met before in the episodes on Oliver Twist and The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices …

    Emily is working on George Silverman, and other rarer Dickens stories for Oxford University Press, and has just published The Verse of Charles of Dickens for Edinburgh University Press which she has co-authored with Dr Lydia Craig. ( There is a joint episode on this with Emily and Lydia already waiting in the wings)

    George Silverman's Explanation is an indictment against poverty, as powerful as you will find in any of Dickens’ larger works. It is also a biting satire against the 'daring ignorance' and little 'meannesses' found in many non-conformist movements. Above all it is a deeply affecting examination of how far a childhood of of both want and punishing religious control can impact a man’s self-worth and future happiness.


    Support the show

    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 you for listening!
    Show More Show Less
    43 mins
  • George Silverman's Explanation (Audiobook): Read by Dominic Gerrard

    George Silverman's Explanation (Audiobook): Read by Dominic Gerrard
    May 12 2025

    Dominic reads George Silverman's Explanation - one of Dickens' rarer short stories - ahead of an upcoming discussion with Dr. Emily Middleton ...



    Support the show

    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 you for listening!
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 17 mins

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