A programme in honour of The Centenary Year of the First Publication of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
Compiled by V. C. CLINTON-BADDELEY from the original documents
The cast includes
Roy Byford Deering Wells H. 0. Nicholson Gladys Young J. Leslie Frith John Cheatle Julian D'Albie Philip Wade
Nellie Bowman Alan Wheatley Carleton Hobbs Lionel James
Cyril Nash V. C. Clinton-
Baddeley
The B B C Theatre Orchestra, conducted by Mark H. Lubbock
As early as possible in this his centenary year the BBC pays its tribute to Mr. Pickwick, who made. his bow to the world in ' The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club ', published in twenty monthly parts, of which the first appeared on March 31, 1836. Of all the centenary celebrations of the coming year, this is likely to be by far the most universally acclaimed. The immortal Pickwick, upon whose broad shoulders the twenty-four-year-old Charles Dickens was carried to fame and fortune, is one of the few monumental figures of English fiction, gigantic today as he ever was.
This programme surveys the whole phenomenon of Pickwick from his first inception to his final triumph, and has been compiled from original documents backed by the authority of the Dickens
Fellowship. It begins on a note of congratulation : ' Ladies and gentlemen of Great Britain, wherever you may be : pray charge your glasses ! Mr. Pickwick ! ' Then will follow first the story of the book itself, from the early discussions and tribulations and the mixed reception given to the work by the literary critics of the day, to the Pickwick craze that swept over Britain and has never quite died away ; and, secondly, in rapid flashes from the familiar pages of the book, the life of Mr. Pickwick himself to his final retirement to Dulwich (where, presumably, he still lives, as nothing has ever been heard to the contrary). For ardent Dickensians and mere readers alike, this should be one of the joliiest broadcasts of 1936.