''The Tyrant Years'' is a 1958 Australian radio play by

Joy Hollyer Joy Hollyer was an Australian writer whose career ranged from the 1940s until the 1970s. She collaborated a number of times on radio scripts with Edmund Barclay Edmund Piers Barclay (2 May 1898 – 26 August 1961) was an English-Australian w ...

about the last years in the life of

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

. The play was well received and was produced again in 1959, 1962, 1968 and 1974.

Premise

"At 45, (1857), Dickens was at the height of his powers. But at home his personal life was beginning to break up. His pallid wife, Catherine, was quite inadequate for him and his attention turned to a beautiful young actress, Ellen Ternan. It is from this point that Joy Hollyer develops the complicated and absorbingly interesting pattern of a brilliantly successful and vital man growing old and unwilling to accept age."

Cast of 1958 Production

*James Condon as

*Amber Mae Cecil as

Ellen Ternan Ellen Lawless Ternan (3 March 1839 – 25 April 1914), also known as Nelly Ternan or Nelly Wharton-Robinson, was an English actress known for association with the author Charles Dickens. Birth and family life Ellen Ternan was born in Roches ...

*Lyndal Barbour as

Georgina Hogarth Georgina Hogarth (22 January 1827 – 19 April 1917) was the sister-in-law, housekeeper, and adviser of English novelist Charles Dickens and the editor of three volumes of his collected letters after his death. Biography 'Georgy' Hogarth was o ...

*Peter Owen as Forster *Shulamita Rovkin as Mamie Dickens *Derani Scarr as Katie Dickens *John Sherman as Dolby *Brenda Senders as Catherine Dickens *Olive Walter as Mrs. Ternan *Mary Mackay as Mrs. Hogarth *Janne Coghlan as Maria Ternan *Walter Pym as Lord Lytton

Cast of 1959 Production

*Patricia Kennedy as Georgina Hogarth *Mary Ward as Catherine Dickens *Lesley Pope as Mamie Dickens *Georgina Batterham as Katie Dickens *Frank Gatlin as Charles Dickens *Agnes Dobson as Mrs. Hogarth *Beverley Dunn as Ellen Ternan *Bettine KauJTmann as Maria Ternan *Moira Carleton as Mrs. Ternan *Edward Howell as Dolby *Williams Lloyd as Forster *Eleanor Clapham as Pianist *Paul Bacon as Lord Lytton

References

{{reflist

External links

The Tyrant Years
at AustLit 1958 Australian radio dramas 1960s Australian radio dramas 1959 Australian radio dramas Australian radio dramas based on actual events