Gerald Charles Dickens (actor) his own British and American tours, Gerald Dickens performs extracts from "The Pickwick Papers", "David Copperfield", "Oliver Twist", "Great Expectations", "Nicholas Nickleby" and "A Christmas Carol" among others, in the latter creating 26 characters in a performance described by "The New York Times" as "a once in a lifetime brush with literary history." Dickens has recorded unabridged audiobooks of "The Pickwick Papers" and "Nicholas Nickleby". In December 2011 he appeared on the BBC's "Songs of Praise". A keen golfer, he wrote and performs the two-act play "Top Hole!", based on four golfing stories by P. G. Wodehouse. In 2015 at
Nicholas Nickleby style is considered to be episodic and humorous, though the second half of the novel becomes more serious and tightly plotted. Dickens began writing "Nickleby" while still working on "Oliver Twist" and while the mood is considerably lighter, his depiction of the Yorkshire school run by Wackford Squeers is as moving and influential as those of the workhouse and criminal underclass in "Twist". "Nickleby" marks a new development in a further sense as it is the first of Dickens's romances. When it was published the book was an immediate and complete success and established Dickens's lasting reputation. The cruelty of