Our Mutual Friend

Click for full size

 Dickens at his desk in 1859 by W P Frith.

Introduction
On the ceramic Dickens sits at his writing desk, left and gives a public reading, right. The three figures above him are Samuel Pickwick, Miss Havisham and Oliver Twist. Our Mutual Friend was his last completed novel in 1865, with similar monetary themes to Little Dorrit from ceramic feature 3/3.

click for full size

Hazle Ceramics
Our Mutual Friend
Limited Painting of 50
on Upton-upon-Severn

 Dickens travelled with a small desk, a large screen that acted as a back-of-stage soundboard for his voice and a gas lighting rig - hung from a bar 12 feet above the stage.

Dickens’ Xmas 2011 1/3
Illustrations by Chris McAllister

£105.50 Worldwide
With Free Postage

Click to add to basket

“Hear Dickens and die...”
Dickens did stage tours in the UK and US from 1858 until just before he died in 1870. His team had a manager for bookings and travel, a valet-cum-dresser and a stage technician. The two hour “readings” were acted out largely from his memory. Dickens threw himself into exhausting dramatic roles such as Nancy’s vile death in Oliver Twist. The Scotsman quote above, typical of a glowing press, goes on, “you will never live to hear anything of its kind so good.”

 Our Mutual Friend in 1998 with Anna Friel as Bella Wilfer, on a London paddlesteamer. She was to marry a never-met rich man - then found dead in the Thames. Or was he? Filmed at Chatham Dockyard where Dickens’ father worked and Charles began his love of the sea.

 Dickens in Boston, 1842.