Dickens. BBC2, Saturday, May 11, 9-10pm. Peter Ackroyd’s three-part television biography starts with Charles Dickens already in his fifties, clambering out of a wrecked train in which he had been travelling home from Paris with two women. The identity of the women who were with him at the time of the Staplehurst crash, Ackroyd tells us, is the key to the “mystery” of Dickens’s life and character.
From this point the narrative follows a more or less chronological course, with dramatised scenes from the novels, commentary by Ackroyd and quotations from relatives, friends and other contemporaries, delivered by a host of eminent actors. The mystery is a bit of damp squib. But there is enough passion here to prompt a return to the novels.
Want to keep reading for free?
Register with Tes and you can read five free articles every month, plus you'll have access to our range of award-winning newsletters.
