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
New Theatre Royal not by day, Smike—not by day.' " Nicholas Nickleby Charles Dickens 1838–39 Dickens was born in Portsmouth and visited the theatre in 1838 to research Nicholas Nickleby. He was not only a brilliant writer but a consummate performer and would-be actor. His readings were legendary and made him a 19th-century celebrity. There is a belief that he may have performed at the Portsmouth Theatre but this is unlikely. His descriptions in Nicholas Nickleby show that in addition to the auditorium he visited the stage and back stage but his career as a public performer began some ten years into his