PERFORMANCE & COMEDY

Theatre Royal Bath (to Sat 15 Oct)

THEATRE That fine fellow Mr Dickens knew a thing or two when it came to telling a good yarn. Combine his literary genius with one of this generation’s most accomplished actors, and you’re in for a fine evening's entertainment. Dickens had a repertoire of monologues that he performed on his book tours, with ‘Dr Marigold' and 'Mr Chops' firm favourites with audiences here and in the United States – and it’s easy, from Simon Callow's inspired stagings, to see why.

Bounding onstage looking for all the world like a reincarnated drawing by Dickens' illustrator Phiz, Callow has audiences hanging on his every word, as he lays before us in florid detail the day-to-day minutiae of events at Magsman’s Amusements (a good old-fashioned travelling show) and the subsequent rise and fall of Mr Chops, the show’s ‘vertically challenged’ grotesque who wins the lottery and goes into society - only to discover that it is more of a freak show than the environment he has come from.

His second persona, Dr Marigold, is a genial but put-upon working man, sorely tried by the actions of his nagging, vindictive wife and the untimely death of his dearly beloved daughter Sophie. Marigold's sober musings on the vicissitudes of the daily grind are nonetheless uplifting, as you watch his innate optimism fighting for air against the trials of life, in his constant quest to make sense of the human condition.

As with Dickens’ novels, the underlying current of satire and social comment is well-seasoned with a solid helping of Victorian melodrama and sentimentality. But do we care? Not a bit of it. Resting comfortably in the palm of Mr Callow’s hand, we let him wrap the fabric of these larger-than-life tales around us, transporting us back to those dark Victorian days with humour, pathos and enormous gusto. (Amanda Robinson)

Copyright Amanda Robinson 2011