''Charles Dickens's England'' is a feature documentary written and produced by David Nicholas Wilkinson, directed by Julian Richards and presented by

Derek Jacobi Sir Derek George Jacobi (; born 22 October 1938) is an English actor. He has appeared in various stage productions of William Shakespeare such as ''Hamlet'', ''Much Ado About Nothing'', '' Macbeth'', ''Twelfth Night'', '' The Tempest'', ''Kin ...

. Other participants include

Roy Hattersley Roy Sydney George Hattersley, Baron Hattersley, (born 28 December 1932) is a British Labour Party politician, author and journalist from Sheffield. He was MP for Birmingham Sparkbrook for over 32 years from 1964 to 1997, and served as Depu ...

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

Synopsis

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

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

used by Dickens in the opening chapter of '' Great Expectations'';

Miss Havisham Miss Havisham is a character in the Charles Dickens novel '' Great Expectations'' (1861). She is a wealthy spinster, once jilted at the altar, who insists on wearing her wedding dress for the rest of her life. She lives in a ruined mansion wit ...

’s house in

Rochester Rochester may refer to: Places Australia * Rochester, Victoria Canada * Rochester, Alberta United Kingdom *Rochester, Kent ** City of Rochester-upon-Medway (1982–1998), district council area ** History of Rochester, Kent ** HM Prison ...

; the London Roman Baths used by ''

David Copperfield ''David Copperfield'' Dickens invented over 14 variations of the title for this work, see is a novel in the bildungsroman genre by Charles Dickens, narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from inf ...

''; Joe Gargery’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 ''Nicholas Nickleby'' or ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby'' (or also ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Containing a Faithful Account of the Fortunes, Misfortunes, Uprisings, Downfallings, and Complete Career of the ...

''. Over 100 locations are featured including from

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

to the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...

, numerous London locations, from

Chatham Chatham may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Canada * Chatham Islands (British Columbia) * Chatham Sound, British Columbia * Chatham, New Brunswick, a former town, now a neighbourhood of Miramichi * Chatham (electoral district), New Brunswic ...

to Broadstairs, to Folkestone, to

Barnard Castle Barnard Castle (, ) is a market town on the north bank of the River Tees, in County Durham, Northern England. The town is named after and built around a medieval castle ruin. The town's Bowes Museum's has an 18th-century Silver Swan automato ...

, and to St George's Hall in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

. 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'' offices in Covent Garden where he lived and worked, and

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. Today the building is the independent Gad's Hill School. ...

in Kent, are 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. In October 2009, ''Charles Dickens's England'' was broadcast in the UK by Sky Television on their channel

Sky Arts Sky Arts (originally launched as Artsworld) is a British free-to-air television channel offering 24 hours a day of programmes dedicated to highbrow arts, including theatrical performances, movies, documentaries and music (such as opera perfor ...

Critical reaction

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

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

.Rotten Tomatoes — Charles Dickens' England
Mark Kermode called it a "waste (of) two hours of my life...". Critics derided the uncinematic quality of the filmmaking and the ineptitude of Jacobi as a presenter. ''

The Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

'' wrote: "Thank goodness for Charles Dickens's England...endearing Dickensian innocence". ''Empire'' magazine wrote "decidedly charming documentary".

References

External links

*
Charles Dickens's England
' at the

Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

2009 documentary films 2009 films British documentary films Works about Charles Dickens Documentary films about writers Documentary films about England 2000s British films {{UK-documentary-film-stub