Callow: There is a basic compassion that lies at the heart of all Dickens' work (From Ealing Times)

Callow: There is a basic compassion that lies at the heart of all Dickens' work

11:20am Saturday 8th October 2011 in Interviews By Rebecca Cain

SIMON Callow speaks about Charles Dickens' work so passionately it is easy to realise why the author's stories continue to be read today. For Callow, Dickens is one of the greatest writers and is bringing two of his tales to life at the Aylesbury Waterside Theatre. He tells Rebecca Cain what the Victorian novelist means to him.

Callow first discovered Dickens when he was ill with chickenpox when he was a child. He said he could not stop scratching, that was until his grandmother gave him a copy of Pickwick Papers and he never scratched again.

He said it was bursting with imagination, fun and madness and in some ways he still loves it best of Dickens work.

Callow has written extensively about Dickens and has played the author numerous times including in a BBC programme, An Audience With Charles Dickens.

He is currently touring with two one-man plays called Dr Marigold and Mr Chops. He enthrals the audience with the story of Dr Marigold, a travelling salesman who adopts a little deaf and dumb girl, and Mr Chops, a freak-show turn who wins the lottery and a place in society.

So what is it about Dickens that inspires him. He said: "I suppose the thing everyone likes about him. The generosity and scope of his characters . The brilliant comedy and the dark. The sense of the dark that lies in all human beings and the fact of the basic compassion that lies at the heart of really all his work."

The 62-year-old actor said he wrote on such a massive scale that you would have to set yourself two or three years aside to get through it all.

He added: "He had a particularly vivid sense of injustice and of social injustice, particularly because of his childhood. His father had gone bankrupt and Dickens was put to work at the age of ten in a shoe polish factory. To put a child in that sort of rat infested warehouse doing the most monotonous job conceivable- putting little bits of paper on top of polish bottles. This gave him a sense of identification with people who were disadvantaged."

Callow said the author believed in getting people to improve their own lot and spent a lot of time giving talks about life improvement.

The Four Weddings and a Funeral star even played Dickens in a Doctor Who episode.

He said: "It was such a touching depiction of Dickens. The last scene in which Dickens talks to Dr Who. It was so wonderfully written. Dickens says: “I've just got one question for you - will my books still be read in the future?” And he says: “Yes.” And Dickens says: “How long for?” and he replies: “Forever.”"

Callow opened the Aylesbury Waterside Theatre with David Suchet and said he was looking forward to returning to get on stage.

He said: "The audience love being told stories. I can feel it. Last night in Guildford everybody took a breath at the beginning of Dr Marigold and breathed out at the end."

Dr Marigold and Mr Chops is at the Aylesbury Waterside Theatre from October 17 to 22 at 7.30pm with Thursday and Saturday matinees as 2.30pm. Tickets range from £10 to £25. Call 08448717607 or go to www.ambassadortickets.com/aylesbury