What The Dickens? gives a voice to the forgotten women of his past, amid the #MeToo movement and rise of cancel culture
A play which reimagines a Christmas Carol came to Cardiff last night, spotlighting Charles Dickens’s past cruelty towards women in a society which isn’t afraid to call out toxic male behaviour.
What The Dickens? explores Dickens’s life through his relationships and treatment of women.It was written and produced by Clare Norburn, the artistic director of theatre company The Telling.
The two-act play was performed at the Church of St Edwards in Roath on 3 December and is a dramatic retelling of Dickens’s much-loved seasonal story with carols and folk songs.
Dickens takes on the role of Scrooge on his final Christmas Eve, in 1869. He is haunted by his wife Catherine as the ghost of Christmas past, his mistress Ellen Ternan as the ghost of Christmas present and the ghost of Christmas yet-to-come, who offers redemption for Dickens’s cruelty.
Alexander Knox, who plays a young Dickens, said: “The play explores the themes of gender and Dickens’s legacy.”
“The narrative he’s been telling to the public is missing a lot of details,” he added.
Dickens’s problematic past
Dickens’s affair with Ternan, an 18-year-old actress, led to his separation from his wife Catherine. When the affair was revealed, Dickens launched a campaign against his wife, labelling her a bad mother and blaming her for the split.
There was an initial reluctance from critics to acknowledge Dickens’s moral failings in his personal life, due to his association with traditional Victorian family values, said Holly Furneaux, a professor of Victorian literature and culture at Cardiff University.
“I think in some cases, there’s a sense of national identity or pride that Dickens has often been seen as synonymous with,” she added.
Only recently has public perception of Dickens begun to change, with historians and critics reaching a consensus that Dickens had a “darker side” in the 1940s.
Dr Peter Orford, academic associate of the Charles Dickens Museum, said: “I think now we can recognise that he wasn’t a tortured genius, he was a happy enough guy, but there was a darker side as well.”
It was only in 2010 that Catherine’s voice was re-inserted into history with the seminal biography The Other Dickens: A Life of Catherine Hogarth by Lillian Nayder. This debunked Dickens’s portrayal of Hogarth as an unloved wife and mother.
Following in the book’s footsteps, What The Dickens? counters the traditional representation of Hogarth. In the play, her character said: “I watched from the sidelines as he enjoyed the attention of other women, young women, without the scars of 11 pregnancies.”
The show also focuses on Dickens’s affair with Ternan, with Knox adding that despite outward appearances, the power dynamic between the 45-year-old and his 18-year-old mistress contributed to a borderline abusive relationship.
“I have immense sympathy for the women in the show,” said Knox.
Present significance
In an interview with arts venue The Coro, Norburn reflected on the contemporary resonances of the play, in “the context of #MeToo and recent news stories of celebrities such as Huw Edwards and Phillip Schofield.”
The play is particularly pertinent in light of developing allegations that Gregg Wallace was sexually inappropriate towards Masterchef contestants.
In a rebuttal, now dubbed as “inappropriate and misogynistic” by No 10, Wallace claimed the complainants were a “handful of middle-class women of a certain age.”
This tussle over control of the public narrative between Wallace and his alleged victims has remarkable similarities to Dickens’s own attempt to protect his brand when his affair was revealed.
He was a happy enough guy, but there was a darker side as well
A study conducted by University of Southern California in 2022 found male characters to be four times more prevalent in literature than female characters.
What The Dickens? joins a growing body of cultural works, including musicals Six, & Juliet, and the book Hamnet which form a broader feminist project aiming to give greater weight to women’s voices in their popular representation.
“Famous people are allowed to put forward a version of themselves and their lives,” said Knox. “Dickens was really good at that.”
In conversation with young Dickens
We talked to the actor who plays young Dickens, Alexander Knox, about why he was drawn to the part.
“I read it and I was interested in playing the young Dickens part. That kind of fired me.
I guess I was interested to find out more and learn more about the fact that, in this play, the older Dickens is sort of hiding his past.
All of us are there because we recognise the story, but the narrative of his own life that he’s been telling to the public and to the audience is missing out a lot of details.”
Contemplating the future
The play raises questions about the image of revered historical figures, prompting audiences to reflect on how we should interact with artists and their art.
“It’s not about giving them the answers, but opening the question,” said Knox.
Furneax said works like What The Dickens? tie into ongoing discussions surrounding cancel culture.
Cancel culture first came to collective consciousness in 2017. This year saw the rise of the digitine movement, which combines the words digital and guillotine, and involved millions blocking celebrities whose views or behaviour they find unacceptable.
Furneaux added we should be political in our reading of Dickens and acknowledge his “gendered cruelty” towards women. But this doesn’t devalue his work or mean we shouldn’t read it.
At the end of the play, Dickens is forced to reflect and repent on his actions. The ghost of Christmas yet-to-come shows Dickens his future, with his children turning against him following the death of his wife.
“Hopefully a play like this will raise awareness,” said Orford, “and ask some important questions about our heroes and how we respond to them.”
We spoke to the audience about the impact the play had on them:
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