Simon Callow – Charles Dickens and The Great Theatre of The World

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Biography, Book Review, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of The World, Simon Callow

The writer who adored the theatre, by the actor who adores the writer

Simon Callow has written a wonderful biography of Dickens, with a specific focus on Dickens adoration of theatre, and the links between the passionate, flamboyant theatrical heart in his writing, and the man who virtually killed himself by addiction to giving all of that passionate heart to audiences, in the punishing Reading tours he gave, both in this country and in America.

I loved an earlier book by Callow, My Life in Pieces, a collection of his published writings from newspaper columns, and remember particularly being struck by the way he wrote about Dickens, who he has clearly adored for ever. There is a pretty good fit between this larger than life, generously natured actor, and the larger than life, generously natured, and adored, writer, social campaigner and performer of Victorian England. I knew a little about Dickens the man (mainly, the details of his early life and the difficulties later in his marriage and his hidden liaison with Ellen Ternan), but the prodigious nature of his energy, and the extraordinarily wide scale of his talent – not just as novelist, but as editor, journalist, fosterer of younger writers, actor, monologuist/performer, director, producer, republican, radical, social campaigner and philanthropist in his life, not only his art, – has been revelatory. Dickens was adored by his public, transcending class, and was clearly a man who lived many lives in one, burning away with prodigious energy which must have been exhausting to keep up with. Emotionally highly volatile, he had close and loyal friendships with both men and women, although as someone with a keen business sense he also had some rather violent breakings of loyal friendships with his various publishers.

Dickens the Performer of His Works

I was particularly interested in something slightly throwaway which Callow suggested, fairly early on, wondering, if Dickens had lived today, whether the particularly febrile quality of his energy, drive, imagination and passion, which lurked alongside deep despair, might not have led to the suspicion of mild bipolar disorder.

This is an excellently researched and written book, but it is Callow’s warmth,
appreciation and passion for Dickens which takes it out of the academic and ensures Dickens get placed not just in Callow’s heart, but this reader’s. And the life of the man, in Callow’s book, definitely illuminates that man’s art.

Callow as Dickens courtesy of a Time Lord and the Tardis!

I received this initially as an ARC from Amazon Vine UK, and once again was grateful to fellow blogger and Amazon Viner FictionFan for alerting me to this book in the first place. Here’s the link to her review.

Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre Of The World Amazon UK
Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre Of The World Amazon USA

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Simon Callow – My Life In Pieces

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Book Review, Literary criticism, My Life In Pieces, Simon Callow, Theatre, Theatrical Reviews

The Perfect Plum Pudding – rich, succulent and stuffed full of delights

We often don’t do too well by the exuberantly and flamboyantly talented; particularly in an age which adulates fame and outrageous behaviour rather than great talent and hard work.

Simon Callow, as actor and writer, probably fits many people’s ideas of a `luvvie’ If by that is meant someone who is effusively effulgent in their praise, appreciation and delight for the talents of others, then Callow is indeed a luvvie supreme – and how wonderful!

Here we have a fascinating, well written collection of `pieces’ about Callow’s beloved theatre, about plays and playwrights, about acting itself, the magic of the theatrical experience, about performers – actors, dancers, singers, comedians, and it is an exuberant, life-and-art affirming sort of book.

It’s a dense, rewarding, journey; easy to read and compulsive, and this reader struggled between the desire to gulp it down in one ferocious reading sitting, and to proceed through more slowly and savouringly.

Whilst Simon Callow’s first book `Being An Actor’ was a wonderful exploration into what that entails, and more of a straight through read and even autobiography of Callow himself as actor and man, this book, subtitled `An Alternative Autobiography’ is structured almost as a long raconteur, with `narrative’ and exposition interspersed with chunks of Callow’s prolific published writings in journals, newspapers et al – mainly as a reviewer of books about the theatre and theatrical biographies. Not so much about Callow, more Callow writing about other talents who have delighted, inspired and deeply influenced him.

The overall flavour of this book is one of generosity, intelligence and celebration. A welcome antidote to the sometimes mean-spirited way in which huge and brave talent is received.

Where most of everything tends towards the median, the average, dare one say it the mediocre, it is good to be reminded of the power which the arts are privy to. At their best, they give us a balance between the viscera, the Dionysian, sensual, felt experience, and the Apollonian, cognitive, reasoned, reflective response. Callow reminds us of the importance of art, particularly performance arts , where there is a living, dynamic, shared space. Here is a beautiful explanation of this, describing the National’s production of Amadeus, which effectively made Simon Callow a star:

It was as if the audience had been waiting for the play for years. They ate it up greedily and the ovation at the end was like the roar of the ocean…….Many factors were responsible, not least (Paul) Scofield at his most complexly, sexily dangerous, and the play’s theme – successful mediocrity and its revenge on genius – rang bells with many people. But in the end I believe that what it was all about was music: music as the expression of the spirit, music, one might say, as God’s voice……..which expressed the sublime. This was the hunger that the play fed, for something beyond the realm of compromised life, for the absolute.

And again, on Dickens (easy to see why he should so love and venerate Dickens as writer and man)

Dickens wrote fiercely and pertinently about the abuses of his day, which are not, alas, so different from the abuses of ours……..But it is not for this alone that we read him now; not even for the great generous heart, or for the unique literary voice. It is for his huge populist energy that we love him and need him, for the assertion of the glorious vitality of human life and the united diversity of society, for his denial of uniformity and his exploration of the unbounded manifestations of man and woman, both peccable and divine

In an age which so often seems determined to reduce everything to its meanest and least glorious, this book punches home, and flies high, reminding us of one way in which life in all its messiness, is to be celebrated and embraced – the arts: our cultural heritage is at its most precious in its power to illuminate our humanity

I originally received this as an ARC as part of the Amazon Vine UK programme
My Life In Pieces Amazon UK
My Life In Pieces Amazon USA