Dominic is joined by the inimitable Harry Christophers CBE , founder and conductor of The Sixteen, one of the worlds most revered choral ensembles. With thanks to CORO for these stunning Christmas excerpts:
Carol of the Bells  Apple / Spotify Pilgrim Jesus  Apple / Spotify
Of a Rose  Apple / Spotify  This Have I Done ... Apple / Spotify
Lo, How a Rose e'er Blooming  Apple / Spotify
O Radix Jesse Apple / Spotify  Past Three a Clock Apple / Spotify
For unto us ... Apple / Spotify Amen ... Apple / Spotify
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen  Apple / Spotify
Wassail Song   Apple / Spotify Good King Wenceslas Apple
This Little Babe  Apple / Spotify Ding Dong Merrily On High Apple
Gloucestershire Wassail Apple or Spotify 

This episode was first broadcast on 21st December 2023

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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

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

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Dominic is joined by the wonderful award winning food historian Pen Vogler who returns to the podcast to talk about Dickensian Christmas Dinners ...

Focusing on Dickens' five Christmas books - A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life  and The Haunted Man  -  Pen explores what the characters eat and why.

From the Cratchit children 'basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion'; Trotty and Meg sharing a dish of a tripe outside on the steps; Edward and May’s wedding; Dr. Jeddler’s breakfast out in the orchard; and the Tetterby family’s knucklebone of pork and pease pudding.

Pen's books - such as Dinner With Dickens  and Stuffed are available to buy here: https://thesohoagency.co.uk/authors/pen-vogler

This episode was originally broadcast on 20th December 2023

Original cover headshot of Pen Vogler © Katy Riddell / Original cover headshot of Dominic Gerrard © Jane Lloyd 

Original Dickens illustrations sourced from Michael John Goodman's incredible Charles Dickens Illustrated Gallery

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!

The wonderful actor Chris Nayak reads the from the First Branch of The Holly-Tree Inn - one of Dickens' rarer Christmas stories … 

Packed with self-deprecating humour, a fantastic snowy atmosphere, this a very pleasing festive narrative. 

Chris’ stage credits include King Duncan in Macbeth at the Globe this year, and previously the RSC and West End. His screen work includes Coronation Street and We Hunt Together …

So sit back an enjoy this opening  excerpt from The Holly Tree Inn 

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!

Award-winning actress, comedian, and satirist Rosie Holt returns to the series to read the opening of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol on the 180th anniversary of its publication today in 1843 ...

Rosie makes regular appearances on BBC Radio 4 and as a satirist her work is so powerful that half the country seem to think she’s an actual Conservative Member of Parliament. This is both hilarious and deeply worrying. Her podcast, NONCENSORED with Eshaan Akbar and Brendan Murphy, was nominated for an ARIA this year, and her show That’s Politainment  will tour in the Spring of 2024.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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!

Dominic’s guest today is the inimitable Emma Rutherford who recalls her time working on the rediscovery of a lost portrait of Dickens, painted by Margaret Gillies in 1843, and lost for over a century until its serendipitous reappearance at a South African auction. A pivotal snapshot of Dickens' life, the portrait's story hints at the profound bond between Gillies and Dickens, a bond that may have helped shape A Christmas Carol

Emma is an art historian, with a specialisation in portrait miniatures and silhouettes. Emma began her career at London’s Victoria & Albert Musuem, and then for 15 years established and ran the Portrait and Miniatures Consultancy at Philip Mould’s  & Company

This year she has set up The Limner Company

Her publications include Without Hands The Art of Sarah Biffin … a topic for a future episode!

This episode was originally broadcast on 19th December 2023

Original cover headshot of Dominic Gerrard © Jane Lloyd  / Original cover headshot of Emma Rutherford © Emma Rutherford / Backdrop shows detail of the 'Lost Portrait' of Charles Dickens by Margaret Gillies (1843)

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!

Light up your holiday season with the enchanting narration of our guest, the brilliant Gina Beck as she transports us to the charm and warmth of a festive journey from Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers in a way that is sure to stir the Christmas spirit in you.

Gina has been a star of London’s West End for nearly two decades playing the leads in Matlida, The Phantom of the Opera, Wicked & Les Miserables. Right now she can be seen in the current season of The Crown on Netflix.

Reading adapted from Chapter 28 of the Pickwick Papers by Dominic Gerrard …

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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!

The award-winning actor and writer Patterson Joseph takes the listener on a  fascinating journey into the captivating life of Charles Ignatius Sancho, an African man who found favour among the highest reaches of 18th-century British society,  and who had a front-row seat to the infamous Gordon Riots of 1780 ...

Sharing the inspiration behind his thrilling novel -The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho-Paterson shares his unique writing processes, heavily influenced by Dickens' immersive character development, and his uncanny knack for sensory detail

Here is also a link to Paterson reading the audiobook of Sancho:
https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/The-Secret-Diaries-of-Charles-Ignatius-Sancho-Audiobook/B09TD1SGLZ

Original cover headshot of Paterson Joseph Paterson © Robert Day 

Original cover headshot of Dominic Gerrard © Jane Lloyd

Background detail from Ignatius Sancho (1768) Thomas Gainsborough, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

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!

Celeste Callen returns to share her insights on how Henri  Bergson's theories of the 'superficial self' and the 'mechanical man' permeate through Dickens' novels such as The Signal-Man,  Bleak House,  Hard Times, The Chimes,  and Master Humphrey's Clock

Celeste Callen holds a BA (Hons) in English Language and Literature from King's College London and an MSc in Enlightenment, Romantic and Victorian Literature from the University of Edinburgh. She is a third year PhD candidate in English Literature at the University of Edinburgh. Her PhD research explores subjective temporal experience in Dickens’ fiction,  through the lens of Henri Bergson’s philosophy of time. Her other areas of interest include representations of selfhood, memory, subjectivity and temporality, as well as reflections on the novel and the philosophy of time more broadly.

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!

Dominic is joined by the inimitable James Swanton  who is performing A Christmas Carol, The Chimes and Haunted Man in person this year at the Dickens Museum. And for those of you listening outside the UK you can watch a live stream of his Haunted Man - filmed inside number 48 Doughty Street - on the 11th December.

James read English at Selwyn College Cambridge. Since graduating his acting credits include Sikes and Nancy at London’s Trafalgar Studios, Irving Undead and this years’ upcoming BBC Ghost Story for Christmas Lot No.249

His inspirations are far ranging, and a brilliant English teacher by the name of Mr Crisp who took James under his wing when he was at secondary school and set him on the path that he still treads today …

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!

Dominic is joined by the award-winning author and food historian Pen Vogler who offers insightful reflections on how Charles Dickens used food as complex metaphors in his novels, that reflect the psychological and societal shifts during the Victorian era. The richly detailed food descriptions in works like A Christmas Carol and Little Dorrit reflect not just the era's celebrated dining etiquettes but sometimes Dickens' own discomfort in these settings.

From Pen's new book Stuffed there's also a hearty discussion on the role of food in society, particularly concerning feeding children, an issue highlighted more than ever during the pandemic. With a nod to the inspiring campaign by footballer Marcus Rashford, Pen finds parallels in Dickens' advocacy for children's rights and a nation's duty to nourish its future generations. We take a bite into history with the contentious debates in Parliament over this responsibility and the impact of land Enclosures on the food system. 

Get ready also to rediscover the culinary history of forgotten ingredients like caraway seeds and dried broad beans.  Pen also promises a future Christmas episode. So sit back, savour the flavour of history, and let's dig in!

Original cover headshot of Pen Vogler © Katy Riddell / Original cover headshot of Dominic Gerrard © Jane Lloyd 

Original Dickens illustrations sourced from Michael John Goodman's incredible Charles Dickens Illustrated Gallery

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!