THE PICKWICK PAPERS 📚 : with Hugo Bowles Artwork

Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire! 🔥

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 🔥

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Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire! 🔥

THE PICKWICK PAPERS 📚 : with Hugo Bowles

April 21, 2025 • Dominic Gerrard

Dominic is joined by the inimitable Prof. Hugo Bowles who is currently working the OUP edition of The Pickwick Papers to guide us through this riot of a novel - if it is a novel?

Hugo is an alumnus of both Oxford and Cambridge where he read English, Classics and Applied Linguistics. For over three decades he lectured at four Italian Universities and is the author of Dickens and Stenographic Mind (published by Edinburgh University Press). We last caught up with Hugo in his joint episodes with Dr. Claire Wood as they spoke about their award-winning Dickens Code Project.

Joining us today, to read extracts from this dizzying narrative is the wonderful actress Gina Beck.

The sounds of horses, carriages, seagulls and nature are used with permission from Epidemic Sound

Caution: Listeners please note that the topic of suicide is covered in the earlier parts of the Pickwick story.

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!