Claim OwnershipCharles Dickens: A Brain on Fire! 🔥
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© 2025 Dominic Gerrard
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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 🔥
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 🔥
94 Episodes
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Dominic takes three more Dickensian Christmas Readings from the archives: The Battle of Life, The Haunted Man And The Ghost's Bargain & The Holly-Tree Read by Rebecca Tanwen, Tom Andrews and Chris Nayak HAPPY CHRISTMAS !!! These readings were first published separately in December 2023 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: Domin...
Dominic is joined again by the inimitable Professor Robert Douglas Fairhurst who returns to this series to explore Dickens' five iconic Christmas Books: A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life & The Haunted Man ... Robert's latest book Metamorphosis: A Life in Pieces is available to order here HAPPY CHRISTMAS !!! This Episode was originally broadcast on 12th December 2022 Support the show If you'd like to make a donation to support the costs of prod...
Dominic dips into the Christmas archives to bring you three Dickensian Christmas Readings from The Pickwick Papers, The Chimes & The Cricket on the Hearth ... Published here in one episode for the first time. Our cast of readers include Gina Beck, Carlyss Peer and Tom Bennett … HAPPY CHRISTMAS !!! These readings were originally published separately during the Christmas of 2023 Support the show If you'd like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series you can buy ...
Dominic is joined by the wonderful Dr. Claire Wood again for a special Christmas episode on Charles Dickens' The Story of the Goblins who Stole a Sexton; A Christmas Carol and The Chimes ... Reading extracts from these stories is the brilliant actor Tom Andrews ... HAPPY CHRISTMAS!! This episode was originally broadcast on 21st December 2022 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.buymeacof...
Dominic is joined by the inimitable Dr. Philip Palmer: Robert H. Taylor Curator & Department Head of Literary and Historical Manuscripts at the Morgan Library & Museum and custodian of Charles Dickens' one and only handwritten manuscript of A Christmas Carol ... Here Philip shares many of the secrets of the manuscript, such as the ideas and phrases that Dickens struck from his story (that can still be seen in the crossings out), and the expert care that goes into its preservation...
Dominic reads a quietly enchanting festive episode from “Master Humphrey’s Clock” by Charles Dickens. Master Humphrey is wandering the snowy streets, one 25th December, and casually walks into a tavern. A decision that will change his life forever ... A MERRY CHRISTMAS to all you listeners, wherever in the world you are! 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/dominicge...
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 minia...
Welcome to CHRISTMAS at Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire! 🔥 The very first of our special Festive will go live shortly ... And If you’re new to this series, there are some incredible episodes already waiting for you to listen to. Interviews with leading actors, academics, writers, historians, and descendants of the great man him self! Guests such as: Stephen Fry, Miriam Margolyes, Armando Iannucci, Rosie Holt, John Mullan, Lucinda Hawksley, Robert Douglas Fairhurst, Andrew Davies & Alic...
Dominic is joined by returning guest, the inimitable Professor John Mullan: author of What Matters in Jane Austen? (now released in a 250th Birthday Edition) and The Artful Dickens - both published by Bloomsbury Press In a lively chat, John sheds light on the tricks, devices and styles of these two incredible writers: Jane Austen and Charles Dickens ... And in case you haven’t heard John's previous conversation on Great Expectations we thoroughly recommend you scroll back to Episode 5 of this...
Dominic is joined by the inimitable Prof. Emma Clery - author of The Rise of Supernatural Fiction 1762-1800 and Professor of English Literature at Uppsala University, Sweden. They continue this month’s theme of the supernatural, taking you on a journey into the heart of an event that caused a sensation in Georgian London, and would inspire Dickens decades later … The real life story of The Cock Lane Ghost set the stage for an earnest debate between Anglicans and Methodists - the former skepti...
The ghostly episodes continue as Dominic welcomes back the inimitable Dr. Emily Middleton who helps piece together the scattered psychological fragments that create Dickens' To Be Read at Dusk ... Five couriers sit high up watching the sun set over snowy peaks of the St Bernard's Pass, their minds flitting from one strange unsettling anecdote to another. Ideas of premonition, mesmerism, and the powerful telepathy that can exist between twins, abound in this story ... Additional so...
Dominic is joined by the inimitable Dr. Kirstin Mills Senior Lecturer and Director of the Master of Research & Graduate Diploma of Research in the Faculty of Arts, at Macquarie University. Kirstin's recent articles include the chapter "Morphean Space and the Metaphysics of Nightmare ..." published in Gothic Dreams and Nightmares for Manchester University Press. Their conversation flits and tumbles through the realms of 19th Century dreams and nightmares. Many of which are sure to ha...
This Halloween ... actor Jonathan Broadbent reads one of the interpolated ghost stories, from The Pickwick Papers In The Lawyer and The Ghost a somewhat disreputable young Lawyer has retired to his meagre lodgings one night and is forced to debate with something not of this world ... 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! H...
This Halloween Dominic is joined by the inimitable Prof. Andrew Smith who guides us through Dickens' The Black Veil and his latest book Dickens and the Gothic (for Cambridge University Press) Perhaps calling to mind Susan Hill’s The Woman In Black … The Black Veil begins with a young man sitting by the fire one winter’s night, with cosy thoughts of Christmas. Out of the corner of his eye the veiled figure of a lady dressed in mourning appears, standing motionless, with eyes f...
Dominic announces a new series of Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire!🔥 and share some personal stories of haunting ... 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 now to Jeff Wayne about the creation of his masterpiece The Musical Version of The War of the Worlds ... At time of recording this multiplatinum album has sold over 16 million copies worldwide and is currently running as an Immersive Experience in London. It features searing performances from Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott as the crazed Parson Nathaniel, and David Essex’s swaggering and delusional Artilleryman, with Julie Covington as Beth bringing real humanity into their performance. Whil...
Dominic speaks to the award-winning composer Jeff Wayne about Two Cities (his Musical adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities) that opened at the Palace Theatre, in London's West End, on 27th February 1969 Despite a run of just 44 performances, Two Cities was Nominated for Best Musical at the Evening Standard Awards - with its star Edward Woodward also winning the Best Male Performance for a Musical category for his portrayal of Sydney Carton. Audiences and critics alike also praised Elizabeth Pow...
In the July of 1844 Dickens, his wife Catherine, their five children, his sister-in-law Georgina - plus three servants and their dog Timber - left London for Italy. What followed was an extraordinary adventure for them all. Returning to the series to talk to Dominic about his new Oxford University Press edition of Pictures From Italy is the inimitable Dr. Pete Orford also returning to read excerpts from the book is the brilliant actor Tom Andrews ... The recording Vivaldi's Four Seasons has b...
Bonus Episode! In which Dr. Leon Litvack recounts Dickens' dramatic retrieval of Part 16 of the Manuscript of Our Mutual Friend from the swaying carriage at Staplehurst; and reveals, here for the first time, a key discovery he has made; plus the cut sections he has restored in his new Oxford University Press Edition of the novel ... 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.c...
Dominic is joined by Dr. Leon Litvack whose new edition of Our Mutual Friend for Oxford University Press will be published in November Leon is a reader at Queen’s University Belfast, and is an expert analyst of Dickens’ letters, manuscripts & handwriting. As well as being the Principal Editor of the Dickens Letters Project and Joint General Editor of the Oxford Edition of Charles Dickens, he sits on the Advisory Council for the UK’s National Records and Archives… And returning to the seri...
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