CHARLES DICKENS AND THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE WORLD

Listeners who wish to celebrate the bicentennial of Dickens’s birth will want to treat themselves to this exceptional audiobook. Writer, actor, and director Simon Callow provides a joyous narration—one that is also authoritative, approachable, amusing, and highly engaging. Callow employs his undeniable acting skills to heighten the drama. While maintaining a safe distance from literary analysis, the work successfully presents Dickens’s biography as a discussion of how the legitimate stage influenced his life and work. Callow’s experience with other Dickens productions and his esteem for the author are palpably obvious as he salutes the world’s first celebrity writer. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2012]