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See Charles Dickens’ Great-Great-Grandson Bring ‘A Christmas Carol’ to Life

Gerald Charles Dickens takes one-man show to 12 states

left: Gerald Charles Dickens; right: Charles Dickens
Gerald Charles Dickens, left, adapted “A Christmas Carol” by ​​his great-great-grandfather Charles Dickens, right, for his one-man touring show.
Ian Dickens; Getty Images
By

Barbara Leap,

 
AARP
Published September 24, 2024

Gerald Dickens realized early in childhood that his surname was more recognizable than most.

As the great-great-grandson of Charles Dickens, iconic author of the 1843 novella that shaped the secular world’s perception of Christmas, Gerald Roderick Charles Dickens easily could have become a Scrooge. That didn’t happen, as he’s approachable and friendly, readily willing to sign autographs and shake hands with admirers.

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Yet being the direct descendant of a literary genius beloved around the globe is a hallowed position, right?

“Wrong,” he laughs, launching into an explanation of how his classmates in England kept him humble:

“It was on the first day of a new year at school, and it was our first English lesson with a new teacher. She announced that we would be studying Oliver Twist.

“ ‘You will like it, it is a classic!,’ she said. Then she added, ‘It was written by Dickens’ great-great-grandfather!’ And that is when everyone turned to scowl at me.”

But A Christmas Carol? Every yuletide, that one made Gerald Dickens a hero in his private-school classroom.

Today, at 60, he’s an author himself and also a prolific blogger. Primarily, he’s an actor and director who enjoys serving up slices of his ancestor’s word feasts in theatrical performances he’s adapted into one-man shows of many of his great-great-grandfather’s numerous novels and novellas, and hundreds of short stories. His grandfather was Charles Dickens’ grandson.​

'A Christmas Carol' set at a church in New Jersey
Gerald Charles Dickens plays every character in his touring show of “A Christmas Carol.” Here is the set at Broad Street United Methodist Church in Burlington City, New Jersey.
Courtesy Laura D. Jaskot

Taking Charles Dickens on the road

These shows are presented not just in Dickens’ English homeland but also across the U.S., which he visits at various times of the year, including an extended time each fall.

From October to December he performs his adaptation of A Christmas Carol, arguably Charles Dickens’ best-known work. Onstage Gerald Dickens portrays 26 characters for American audiences who invariably reward his vigorous performances with a standing ovation and robust cheers.

Voicing Scrooge to Mrs. Cratchit

Gerald Dickens first started performing A Christmas Carol in England in 1993 and first toured in 1995.

“I had been an actor before then, but not really making a living from it, so that’s really when my career began,” he explains. “Once I tried performing my great-great-grandfather’s works, which lend themselves very well to theatrical interpretations, I was hooked.”

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For his holiday shows, Gerald Dickens singlehandedly portrays Ebenezer Scrooge, Jacob Marley, Tiny Tim, Fezziwig, and even Mrs. Cratchit and Scrooge’s disillusioned one-time fiancée, Belle, along with 20 other characters. The falsetto male voice Dickens gives the show’s female characters never fails to get a laugh from his enthralled audience.

In fact, he is following in the footsteps of his Victorian ancestor who longed to be a full-time stage performer before turning into a writer. Charles Dickens managed to blend the two careers, practicing his moves and facial expressions in front of a large mirror as he wrote each work, his great-great-grandson says. 

Charles Dickens even traveled to the U.S. in 1842 and in 1867–68 to perform his works for Americans, who worshipped him like the international celebrity he was.

Gerald Dickens has inherited several of his ancestor’s physical traits, including his (once) raven hair, thick eyebrows and bushy beard, although Dickens keeps his trimmed.

Dickens is slender like his novelist ancestor and seems to never run out of steam. He says he stays fit by taking frequent walks and gets most of his exercise during performances, which includes jumping, dancing and leaping on and off the stage.

‘Brush with literary history’

The congregation at Broad Street United Methodist Church in Burlington City, New Jersey, considers Dickens a dear friend, says Laura Jaskot, who is on the church’s leadership team. Jaskot says he has performed at the church since 2011.

“[Having him with us is like] a little corner of New Jersey getting a little taste of England,” observes Jaskot, 61. “It’s a brush with literary history. … He’s not just an actor. He’s a scholar of [Charles] Dickens. … When you read his blog you realize the apple didn’t fall very far from the genealogical tree.”

One devoted fan, Pat Meravi, who lives more than an hour from the church, has never missed his performances there and is always the first to purchase tickets.

Meravi, 86, notes that “even though I have seen [the show] so many times, it is fresh and delightful time after time. He … makes subtle changes/additions over the years, probably noticeable only when you have seen him year after year.”

For Meravi, “Christmas would not be Christmas without Gerald’s performance.”

Travel for holiday delight

Don’t be a huge Scrooge! Get an early start on the holiday season by seeing Gerald Charles Dickens’ spirited one-man show of his great-great-grandfather’s classic, ghostly novella, A Christmas Carol, in 12 states.

Each location on the schedule includes fun and educational activities that can be added to your itinerary should you add a full-day trip or an overnight adventure to your theatrical experience.

Consider these four destinations.

In Lewes, Delaware, reserve your spot on the Cape May–Lewes Ferry for a 90-minute cruise across the Delaware Bay on the three-deck ferryboat that operates 365 days. Your reward upon docking in Cape May, New Jersey: The entire city with street after street of Victorian gingerbread-embellished houses is a National Historic Landmark.

Fifteen minutes from Cambria, California, in San Simeon, is the renowned Hearst Castle. To get a taste of the castle’s interior and its owner before touring it, be sure to watch (or rewatch) Citizen Kane. Along the beaches about 5 miles north of the castle, you may get a rare sighting of hundreds of elephant seals who appear during this time of year. Cambria itself offers the Fiscalini Ranch Preserve, an oceanfront sanctuary where you may see up to 430 kinds of birds (some rare) and 150 different native plants, including Monterey pines in one of only five such forests in the world.

Not too far from Waynesboro, Virginia, in Staunton, is the 200-acre Frontier Culture Museum, an open-air living history museum in the Blue Ridge Mountains sharing the stories of Indigenous, Black and European settlers. Staunton also is home to the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum and the American Shakespeare Center’s Blackfriars Playhouse, the world’s first re-creation of The Bard’s indoor theater.

In Lenox, Massachusetts, the Ventfort Hall Gilded Age Mansion & Museum, built in 1893 for industrialist J.P. Morgan’s sister Sarah, is itself worth a guided tour. Also in Lenox is the Mount, author Edith Wharton’s 1902 home (which she designed), now a National Historic Landmark.

  • Oct. 21: Burlington City, New Jersey — Broad Street United Methodist Church
  • Nov. 9–10: Independence, Missouri — Mid-Continent Public Library
  • Nov. 12: Nashville, Tennessee — Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage
  • Nov. 13: Clearwater, Florida — Arthur Murray Dance Studio
  • Nov. 15–17: Cambria, California — Cambria Pines Lodge
  • Nov. 29: Nashua, New Hampshire — Nashua Center for the Arts
  • Nov. 30–Dec. 1: Sutton, Massachusetts — Vaillancourt Folk Art
  • Dec. 2: Cranston, Rhode Island — Historic Park Theatre & Event Center
  • Dec. 4: Waynesboro, Virginia — Wayne Theatre
  • Dec. 5: Manchester, New Hampshire — Saint Anselm College
  • Dec. 6: Lenox, Massachusetts — Ventfort Hall
  • Dec. 7: Huntington, New York — Cinema Arts Centre
  • Dec. 8: East Meadow, New York — East Meadow Public Library
  • Dec. 9: Red Bank, New Jersey — The Vogel
  • Dec. 11-12: Winterthur, Delaware — Winterthur Museum
  • Dec. 13: Lewes, Delaware — Lewes Public Library
  • Dec. 14-15: Chalfont, Pennsylvania — Byers’ Choice Ltd.

Barbara Leap is a contributing writer whose specialty is human interest stories that educate or uplift. She has also been a reporter and feature writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Bulletin, for which she was a weekly columnist.

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