A DICKENS REVIVAL

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 33, 8 August 1921, Page 3

A DICKENS REVIVAL

ALEXANDER WATSON RECITAL.

"To awaken some loving and forbearing thoughts, never out of season," was Dickens' avowed purpose in writing "A Christmas Carol," "The Chimes," and sonic others. "Dr. Marigold's Prescriptions," recited by Mr; Alexander Watson at the Concert Chamber on Saturday evening, wae, no ; doubt written with the earns end in view. It is the life-story of a Cheap Jack as. told by himself, a story of balanced tragedy and comedy, humour and pathos, se-ntimental but genuinely human.- So much may bo necessary to explain in A.D. 1921, because 'Dr. Mari ; .' gold's Prescriptions," is not so well-known as, say, "The Cricket on the Hearth," or "The Chimes," or "A Christmas Carpi;" besides, reluctant as many young nbvel readers of to-day would be to admit it, tho fact romainu that Dickens not so popular with thorn as are, say. Victoria Cross, Ethel M., Dell, Zane Gray, Dolf Willard, Phillips Oppenheim, Sax Rohmer, and taany other modern writers. So then, in giving "Dr. Marigold's Prescriptions"—Dickens own reading version of it—Mr. Watson proved himself to be a man of courage; and in reciting it all (on his feet most of the time) a, man of endurance. Again, a man possessed of a phenomenal memory, for he never faltered for.a word; v man of remarkable personality and holding-power, too, for it was half-past nine before his audience realised l the timu, and yet, seemingly, it feWno weariness, and certainly ?ave signs of none. On this contrary, it at the close as if it expected some more. Mr. Watson reminded it that the end of the recital had come by reciting Longfellow's "Old Clock on the Stairs." Some who were present may have recalled the Rev. Charles Clark, also, a fine exponent of Dickens. He had a eomma\i'l..ag efa'ge presence, a, magnificent voica, a wonderfully 6uro memory, and decided histrionic gifts. But he had the advantages of his time which have been denied to Mr. Watson, for his audiences were composed of a large majority of people who were word-familiar with Dickens, and on rather more than reading terms with Thackeray. Dickens was then well quoted in speech and leading articles—and recognised when quoted. Penny readings and mechanics' institutes were not wholly extinct. Perhaps the general intellectual tone was higher, sharper, clearer; perhaps it was not. But it would be interesting to see how much any reciter lees than Mr. Alexander Watson would succeed in coaxing a crowd into a largo hall, filling it to fcho last peat, and holding it spell-bound for over an hour and a half with a. story by Dickens, and that not one of his very beet or best known. To do such a thing .in these days is something' in the nature of a feat. Mr. Watson can take a hackneyed passage or poem and with it reconstruct a scene that lives in tho memory when other, even more recent, scenes have, become blurred in outline or faded away. He can (he will this evening) in the oftheard speech beginning "Friends, Romans, Countrymen," fill in fanpy an empty 6t^i.ge with proud patricians and gaping plcbs, backed by tale columns of the Forum, and in the centre of the stage make seen a bier on which dead Caesar lies. But so oxtensivo in his repertoire that he. can conjure up, as he will, and make his hearers see and feel with him things that belong to other lands and other times, some near and some remote. He does this because ho owes his art to none. If lie imitates anyone at all, it is Alexander Watson He will give recitals this evening and tomorrow. To-morrow, Mr. Watson will give selections from J. M. Barrio, and on Wednesday evening, the second Dew programme, which includes "The Boots at the Holly Tree Inn" will be given. The 'box plans are at ths Bristol.