Playbill.com, A Letter from London by Ruth Leon 17th September 2012
I first saw Miriam Margolyes perform her one-woman Dickens' Women some 15 years ago in New York, long before we had met and become friends. I was so knocked out by the extraordinary sweep of her survey of the work of Charles Dickens, by the intelligence of the choices that she (and her co-writer and director Sonia Fraser) had made, and by the unremittingly high quality of her embodiment of the characters, that I broke the habit of a lifetime and went backstage to meet this paragon. Unfortunately, I had wasted too much time in the lobby cogitating on how kosher it was for a critic to meet an actress she was reviewing, and by the time I got to the stage door, Ms. Margolyes had left the theatre. As luck would have it — and believe me, the luck was all mine — some time later a mutual friend invited us both to dinner, and we have been mates ever since.
She moved on to other work, from Restoration comedy to Harry Potter, and I did too, so I never had the opportunity to see Dickens' Women again until a couple of weeks ago. I am glad to be able to report that it's even better now. Margolyes is a true Dickens scholar, having lit her passion as an undergraduate at Cambridge University and continued it throughout her life. She understands the novels from the inside and, when she talks onstage of Dickens's complicated psychology and the complexities of his life as demonstrated in his books, she knows whereof she speaks. This interior confidence shines through her show. She seems less to be performing than to be bringing Dickens himself and his stories into the light. She breaks your heart and she makes you scream with laughter. She doesn't need me to be proud of my clever friend, but I am.
Dickens' Women will be playing Boston in October and New York in November.
Posted : 17th September 2012