If only all lecturers had the verve, vivacity and air-piercing annunciation of Simon Callow, universities the country over would be crammed with engaged students eager to grasp the next crisp syllable to be shot from his lips with a clarity that would make crystal blush at its own opaqueness.
This venerable veteran of stage and screen, a performer as old school as one of Harrow’s hallowed desks, holds the auditorium in the palm of his sometimes-twitchy, oft wildly gesticulating hands as he delivers what is essentially a potted history of arguably Britain’s greatest novelist, decorated with snatches of his most famous creations.
There’s little in Peter Ackroyd’s script that anyone with a basic knowledge of the Great Expectations writer won’t know, from his gruelling childhood spent labouring in a boot polish factory to his adult difficulties with keeping a relationship simple.
But Callow, who must surely be one of our finest orators – like Dickens with his own characters – fills the lungs of the writer, his family and friends with the animating breath of life.
If Dickens’ own dramatic tale, which features an adventure, escape and quirky twist worthy of Indiana Jones, provides the framework for the evening – which is delivered, incidentally, from within its own Christopher Woods-designed frame, its props as sparse as a knowingly undersold phrase – it is when Dickens’ words are spoken and Callow leaps elegantly between characters that the show soars.
The mix of the great novelist’s incredible creations and Callow’s exuberant performance would make an alchemist shed a tear of joy, it is so close to theatrical gold. If you never thought you could well up watching a 63-year-old man play Oliver Twist, it’s time to reconsider. I did.
It’s worth mentioning Nick Riching’s lighting, which roams from warm, cheerful reds to chilling, uncomfortable darkness as the mood of Callow’s oratory tumbles and turns through hardship, love, passion, depression and loss. It is the only artificial assistance the charismatic chameleon receives in telling his tale. To be fair, he needs nothing else.
To plagiarise in the most obvious fashion, “Please sir, I want some more.”