Charles's Dickens's England is a feature documentary written and produced by David Nicholas Wilkinson

David Nicholas Wilkinson

David Nicholas Wilkinson is the founder and Chairman of Guerilla Films Limited, a production and distribution company based in London...

, directed by Julian Richards

Julian Richards (director)

Julian Richards, is a British film director.- Early life :Julian Richards was born and raised in Newport, South Wales, where his father owned DIY retail store Handiland...

 and presented by Derek Jacobi

Derek Jacobi

Sir Derek George Jacobi, CBE is an English actor and film director.A "forceful, commanding stage presence", Jacobi has enjoyed a highly successful stage career, appearing in such stage productions as Hamlet, Uncle Vanya, and Oedipus the King. He received a Tony Award for his performance in...

. Other participants include Roy Hattersley

Roy Hattersley

Roy Sydney George Hattersley, Baron Hattersley is a British Labour politician, author and journalist from Sheffield. He served as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1983 to 1992.-Early life:...

, Adrian Wootton, Tony Williams, Thelma Grove, Lee Ault and Tony Pointon.

Synopsis

Charles's Dickens's England takes the viewer on a journey of all of the most important places, towns and cities that were the inspiration to some of the most famous settings in literature; Cooling Church in Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

 used by Dickens in the opening chapter of Great Expectations

Great Expectations

Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens. It was first published in serial form in the publication All the Year Round from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. It has been adapted for stage and screen over 250 times....

; Miss Havisham

Miss Havisham

Miss Havisham is a significant character in the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations . She is a wealthy spinster, who lives in her ruined mansion with her adopted daughter, Estella, whom she has sent to France, while she herself is described as looking like "the witch of the place."Although she...

’s house in Rochester; the almost forgotten London Roman Baths used by David Copperfield; Joe Gargey’s cottage in Chalk; the notorious Bowes Academy, the harshest of the Yorkshire schools now known to the world as Dotheboys Hall in Nicholas Nickleby.

From Portsmouth

Portsmouth

Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...

 to the Isle of Wight

Isle of Wight

The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...

 to numerous London locations, from Bury St Edmunds to Rochester, from Chatham to Broadstairs

Broadstairs

Broadstairs is a coastal town on the Isle of Thanet in the Thanet district of east Kent, England, about south-east of London. It is part of the civil parish of Broadstairs and St Peter's, which includes St. Peter's and had a population in 2001 of about 24,000. Situated between Margate and...

, to Folkestone

Folkestone

Folkestone is the principal town in the Shepway District of Kent, England. Its original site was in a valley in the sea cliffs and it developed through fishing and its closeness to the Continent as a landing place and trading port. The coming of the railways, the building of a ferry port, and its...

, to Barnard Castle

Barnard Castle

Barnard Castle is an historical town in Teesdale, County Durham, England. It is named after the castle around which it grew up. It sits on the north side of the River Tees, opposite Startforth, south southwest of Newcastle upon Tyne, south southwest of Sunderland, west of Middlesbrough and ...

, and to St George’s Hall in Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

, well over 100 locations are featured. Many of the locations, such as the interior of 58 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where Dickens first read in public, the All the Year Round

All the Year Round

All the Year Round was a Victorian periodical, being a British weekly literary magazine founded and owned by Charles Dickens, published between 1859 and 1895 throughout the United Kingdom. Edited by Dickens, it was the direct successor to his previous publication Household Words, abandoned due to...

offices in Covent Garden

Covent Garden

Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...

 where he lived and worked, and Gads Hill Place

Gads Hill Place

Gads Hill Place in Higham, Kent, sometimes spelt Gadshill Place and Gad's Hill Place, was the country home of Charles Dickens, the most successful British author of the Victorian era....

 in Kent, the last in a very long list of his homes, are simply not open to the public and have rarely been filmed.

Theatrical Release

In 2009 Charles Dickens's England was released in UK cinemas by Guerilla Films.

DVD release

In 2009 an extended version of "Charles Dickens's England" was released on DVD in the UK by Guerilla Films. The DVD also includes added material; interviews, readings, etc.

In October 2009 "Charles Dickens's England" was broadcast in the UK by Sky Television

Sky Digital (UK & Ireland)

Sky is the brand name for British Sky Broadcasting's digital satellite television and radio service, transmitted from SES Astra satellites located at 28.2° east and Eutelsat's Eurobird 1 satellite at 28.5°E. The service was originally launched as Sky Digital, distinguishing it from the original...

 on their channel Sky Arts

Sky Arts

Sky Arts and Sky Arts HD is the brand name for a group of art-oriented television channels offering 18 hours a day of programmes dedicated to highbrow arts, including theatrical performances, movies, documentaries and music...

.

Critical reaction

Reviews of the film were largely negative, earning it a 25% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

. The Financial Times wrote " Thank goodness for Charles Dickens's England...endearing Dickensian innocence", Empire wrote " decidedly charming documentary" so reviews were mixed.

External links

• Charles Dickens's England at the Internet Movie Database
  Internet Movie Database
  Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...