The REAL Charles Dickens with Miriam Margolyes

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

History Hit

Society, Sex, Scandal, Education, History

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Joining us today is writer, actor and all-round Charles Dickens superfan Miriam Margolyes.

You might be familiar with Dickens' hugely popular stories and characters, but what influence did the women in his life have on them?

Having written and starred in the play, Dickens Women, Miriam knows better than most the complicated relationships he had in his life: from his mother who took him out of school to work in a rat-infested blacking factory aged 12, to his wife whom he had a bookcase wall built to separate her from him.

How did Dickens take revenge on one lover for scorning him earlier in his life? How does Miriam square Dickens the man vs. Dickens the artist? And how did Dickens portray lesbian love?

Find out more about Miriam's tour this year, Oh Miriam!, here.

This episode was edited and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Between To Betwixt the Sheets, the History of Sex Scandal and Society from History Hit.
0:05.6	To listen to all of our episodes, add free and watch hundreds of history documentaries,
0:10.6	download the History Hit app or go to History Hit.com forward slash
0:15.6	subscribe. And if you're an Apple listener you can subscribe for new ad-free
0:20.4	episodes within the app.
0:30.0	Hello my lovely betwixters, it's me, Kay Lister, how the hell are you? I hope you good, but I hope you are going to be even better than good by the time we have finished with you today
0:35.3	Because we have a proper treat for you today, but before we can get going I have to give you your fair dues warning here it is this is an adult
0:44.9	podcast broken by adults to other adults about adulty things in an adulty way covering
0:49.0	a range of adult subjects and you should be an adult too. A case in point here is a taster of things to come.
0:58.0	Oh I love potatoes too. I love potatoes.
1:01.0	Yeah, it's a potato or a fuck isn't it? That's what you have to...
1:04.6	Well, she wasn't getting the fuck so clearly she's gone for the potatoes.
1:08.6	I don't know about you, but I am always happy to take my satisfactions in a potato.
1:16.7	And now we've managed to get through that on with the show. It is a damp winter morning near the banks of the Thames in 1823.
1:36.0	As this bustling city comes to life, throngs of people make their way to another hard day's work in the factories that line the river.
1:44.0	Among them is a shy 11 year old Charles Dickens who's about to start his first day of work at a blacking factory, having been
1:55.0	taken out of school by his parents to help pay off their debts. Towards the end of
2:01.4	his life he would describe the rotting building as literally overrun with old grey rats whose squeaking and scuffing would come up the stairs at all times.
2:12.0	But it's here that the young Dickens is exposed to the cruelty young
2:17.0	children faced in Victorian Britain and many of the characters here will inspire some of his most popular and famous stories.
2:25.0	In fact, it's on this day that a boy dressed in a ragged apron and a paper cap
2:30.0	shows Dickens how to tie a knot with string and he introduces himself as Bob Fagan.
	...

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