For these times
David Morrissey and Jason Watkins star in a new season of Dickens dramas, which still feel as relevant as ever…
Illustration by Matthew Brazier
- Anna Jones
Hard Times is on Radio 4 on Sunday 29 September at 3pm. Little Dorrit is on at 3pm on Sunday 13th September, and Our Mutual Friend follows at 3pm on Sunday 3 November. Add them to your collection now.
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David Morrissey plays Thomas Gradgrind, the wealthy school superintendent-cum-merchant-cum-MP with a strong belief in utilitarian, rational thought in Hard Times...
Were you introduced to Dickens as a child?
No. Dickens and Shakespeare were not a part of my [school] curriculum at all. I came to him in my early 20s. There was something about the volume and size of the books that I found intimidating, but then I realised when I started reading them that there was nothing intimidating in the language and that they rocked along. We know now that he wrote them episodically and they were like modern soap operas. They captivated everybody and that’s why newspaper proprietors just loved them – Dickens was one of the main reasons people bought their papers. He has “come back next week” cliffhangers and big moments. I played Bradley Headstone in Our Mutual Friend on BBC2 in 1998, which is very much about intriguing characters: funny, tragic, political. I think certainly with Hard Times there is a modern political aspect to it as well. So, yes, I came to him late. It wasn’t part of my education, but once I dipped my toe in, that was it – I was really smitten!
Tell us more about the connections you see to current politics in Hard Times.
My bugbear for a long time has been people like Michael Gove when he was the Secretary of State Listen for Education [2010–14]. He downgraded what he called “soft options”: arts, music, drama, media studies, things like that. So, he was basically saying to a whole generation of state-educated pupils that these subjects aren’t worth it. Put your energy into what business is telling us we need: maths, English, science. The consequence of that is quashing the imagination, creativity, curiosity, the idea of fantasy.
Hard Times has a modern political aspect to it
David Morrissey
What relevance do you see between Dickens’s novels and contemporary times?
When we are talking about downgrading the arts – in particular in state schools – what you do see is the flipside of that in private schools, some of which have theatre and orchestra facilities that would rival the West End and Royal Philharmonic Society. It means you are saying the arts are available to one strata of society, basically the rich, and not available to this other side, which is basically the workforce. You are creating a narrative that is: “This isn’t for you.” It’s always been the case that, for the powers that be, educating the masses is a dangerous undertaking because people start asking questions – they start getting informed, they start finding things out. I hope that Labour are making all their tough decisions early on and will then start rebuilding the sort of society I hoped they would.
What do you think Dickens would make of modern-day Britain?
I think he would be surprised by how little has changed. I think he would be devastated by the river [Thames] and some of the architecture that has been allowed to appear along it. I think he would be appalled by all the noise and pollution. I think most people around at that time would have thought that in the future we would have become a more egalitarian and humanitarian place.
Are there any Dickens roles that you would love to play?
Dombey [from Dombey and Son]. I think he’s a great character. There’s something about him that I have always loved. Like Gradgrind, he’s a character that’s stuck in his ways. But he’s also grief-stricken. He’s a man who felt that he had one destiny, and it’s snatched away from him, and he can’t live in the present because he is so locked into the past. One of my favourite Dickens books is Night Walks. He was an insomniac and he used to just walk round London at night and write about his observations. It’s very much ruminations on life and the poverty-stricken side of London. Dickens, himself, as a character, I find fascinating. He was obviously a complex individual.
Jason Watkins takes on a dual role in Little Dorrit, as both Charles Dickens and the villainous Rigaud, a self-confessed, cold-blooded murderer...
When were you introduced to Dickens’s work?
I first knew Dickens through films, probably A Christmas Carol. But my father had quite an eccentric relative who lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere in Lincolnshire, who we visited one Sunday when I was about 11. By the afternoon they were all pretty sozzled and he ended up giving me a Caxton Press 1910 collection of Dickens’s works. I’ve still got it; it’s beautiful. But I’ve always struggled with dyslexia, so I didn’t ever actually read the books. I was in a play called A Farewell to the Theatre and I played a Dickens reciter who goes to America, so I did a bit of research then and read a biography. And five years ago I read Barnaby Rudge for Audible. It was then that I really got into understanding his work.
Dickens famously wrote very long sentences, so with your dyslexia, was it daunting being asked to tackle something like Barnaby Rudge?
Yes. I’d said to Audible, “This is going to be a push,” and they said, “No, this is fine, take your time,” and I did work out a way of reading it. I count that, actually, as one of my biggest achievements – to be able to read those 885 pages and make it live.
You’re playing two very different roles in Little Dorrit: Rigaud and Dickens; one’s a murder and the other is a humanistic, sympathetic man. How did you find that?
Great! I mean that’s the dream. The dramatisation is incredibly clever. Dickens is reflecting upon his own position in something that he himself has created. He’s creating this book, these characters, and he – like all good writers – has brought a bit of himself into it. And then, of course, with Rigaud – who is very dark and manipulative, shallow, morally bankrupt… it’s almost too much fun to play one of these villains.
Dickens would be appalled by the amount of child poverty that still exists
Jason Watkins
One of the standout things that people remember from Little Dorrit is the Circumlocution Office, run solely for the benefit of its incompetent, obstructive and self-serving officials. Do you think this makes a connection with contemporary audiences?
It’s bureaucracy gone mad, isn’t it? The equivalent now would be how technology can dehumanise us. Dickens had the Industrial Revolution and the poverty associated with that; we have a technological revolution and it’s where our humanity fits into that. I was talking to somebody yesterday about the problems with getting a GP appointment. Often you have to sit there at 8.30am with your finger on a button and press it quicker than anyone else so that you can have an appointment. What’s all that about? And when you’re sitting on a phone line and they say: “We are experiencing exceptionally high call volume at the moment.” You think, “That’s a lie, isn’t it? You haven’t got enough people. You’re making us wait because you don’t want to pay the money.” I am sure Dickens would love to expose the bureaucracy of that – the lie of that.
What do you think he would make of modern Britain?
I think he would be pretty appalled by the amount of child poverty that still exists in such an enormous global economy; that within one of the top five or six economies in the world we still have a society that is unequal, where so many children starve and aren’t housed properly. But I think he would delight in social media and people saying whatever they like. I’m sure he’d be cancelled fairly quickly... but I’m sure he’d be across that.
Are there any Dickens roles that you would love to play in the future?
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I’d like to play Scrooge because that’s been part of my upbringing. I do get a little bit drawn towards the villains – Bill Sikes [from Oliver Twist] would be good and Magwitch in Great Expectations. Now you’ve asked me, I’m going to have to look at all of his books again.
Authors
Anna Jones
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