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Dickens 2012
Last updated: 13 January 2012 12:27 UKCharles Dickens was born in Portsmouth on 7 February 1812 in what is now the Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum on Old Commercial Road. Dickens was the most popular novelist of the Victorian era and is widely regarded as one of the finest novelists of all time. He created some of literature's most memorable characters and his novels and short stories have never gone out of print.
The power of Dickens's prose, the richness of his characters and his powerful sense of social morality are just as captivating and relevant in the 21st century. His most famous stories, among them ‘Oliver Twist’, ‘Great Expectations’, ‘David Copperfield’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’, have spawned films, plays, television dramas and musicals. After Shakespeare, no other writer matches Dickens in terms of global cultural influence. The 200th anniversary of his birth in 2012 offers a unique opportunity to commemorate the life, work and values of a national treasure.
Dickens 2012 is an international celebration of the cultural and educational legacy of the life and work of Charles Dickens to mark the bicentenary of his birth. Portsmouth’s contribution will be a significant local programme that forms a key part of the city’s Cultural Olympiad celebrations and will raise Portsmouth’s profile as the Home of Great Writing.
At the heart of Portsmouth’s Dickens 2012 is A Tale of One City. Following a successful Heritage Lottery fund application in autumn 2010, the Charles Dickens Community Archive Project was begun. Now known as A Tale of One City it is making steady progress, engaging with community groups as they research their own local history. Some of these projects will be included in an exhibition to be held at the City Museum starting in February 2012, alongside items from Portsmouth’s collections and pages from the original manuscript of part of Chapter 15 of Nicholas Nickleby, on loan from the British Library.
The wider A Tale of One City project will see new life breathed into the Birthplace Museum itself, including costumed guides, readers and an improved educational offer. Actor Al Muir is working with groups across the city to develop a community play based on Dickens.
The Birthplace will be centre stage on 7th February 2012 as the world marks the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens in Portsmouth. The city will hold its traditional wreath-laying ceremony in the morning, with period entertainment on hand for visitors to the museum. There will then be a service of thanksgiving at St. Mary’s, the church where Dickens was baptised. During the day the Big Screen in Guildhall Square will show a Dickens film, while in the evening the New Theatre Royal will host a performance by one of the country’s most respected interpreters of Dickens work, Simon Callow.
There will be other theatre performances of Dickens work throughout the year: ‘A Christmas Carol’ in November 2011, ‘David Copperfield’ in February 2012 and a brand-new dramatisation of ‘Barnaby Rudge’ in August 2012, all at the King’s Theatre.
August 2012 sees the city play host to the International The Dickens Fellowship’s Annual Conference, which comes shortly after the University of Portsmouth’s conference, ‘The Other Dickens’. As part of the Fellowship’s event they will unveil a statue of Charles Dickens they have commissioned from leading sculptor Martin Jennings, which will sit in Guildhall Square.
Other early highlights of Portsmouth’s Dickens 2012 celebrations include: Charles Dickens City Read, a shared reading of ‘Oliver Twist’ in partnership with Vintage Classics, culminating in a sing-a-long ‘Oliver!’ screening on the Big Screen in April 2012; ‘A Hundred Seas Rising’ by Suki Chan, a partnership with University of Portsmouth and Aspex Gallery, that references Dickens’ novel ‘A Tale of Two Cities’; and the annual Portsmouth Festivities (June 2012), Portsmouth BookFest (October 2012) and the Historic Dockyard’s Victorian Festival of Christmas, all of which will feature Charles Dickens and his work.
For up-to-date information on the Dickens 2012 celebrations in Portsmouth have a look at the Visit Portsmouth website or for information on the national celebrations go to the Dickens 2012 website.
Useful links
Portsmouth literature mapArthur Conan Doyle Collection
Portsmouth Poet Laureate
