THE Charles Dickens (Malton) Society held its first daytime – as opposed to evening – performance last Tuesday at the Hidden Monkey Tea Rooms in Malton, and a great success it was.

Linda McCarthy, Brian Oxberry and Badger Billinge, all suitably attired in Victorian costume, gave us fascinating readings from a number of novels.

Before excerpts from David Copperfield, it was pointed out that the novel was largely autobiographical. We saw the famous scene in which the young Copperfield was asked to pass on the message “Barkis is willing”.

From Martin Chuzzlewit, written while staying at Easthorpe Hall, near Malton, home of his friend Charles Smithson, we met Sairey Gamp – modelled on the housekeeper there. She worked for Mr Mould, an undertaker, and observed at the bedside of an old gentleman she cared for “He’d make a lovely corpse”!

From The Old Curiosity Shop we learned of Mr Swiveller catching a “small servant” (who didn’t know her age) spying on him through a keyhole.

Dickens published his works in weekly instalments. Apparently, The Pickwick Papers resulted in a 10-fold circulation increase for the publishing newspaper. Much of this was credited to Sam Weller, who was seen as an “ordinary bloke”. The scene in which he attempted to write a Valentine’s Day message, complete with critical advice from his father, was hilarious.

The final readings were from Captain Murderer – apparently it’s provenance is disputed by some. He was a great pie fan, so he cut off the head of his first wife and made a pie from her body. He did the same with his second wife, then married her sister and attempted the same again – but she had swallowed poison before he killed her, so having eaten the third pie he fell ill and blew up.

l Future presentations by the Dickens Society, at the same venue at 2pm are The Victorian Stamp, on Tuesday, October 11, a history of the British postal stamp, with examples from around the world of stamps featuring Charles Dickens, and Life in the North Yorkshire Workhouse on Tuesday, November 8.

Entry is free to society members, £2 for guests.

For those of us able to visit the Chancery Lane Counting House later, we saw just what an amazing job the society has done in turning this into a fascinating place to see.

There are artefacts from the Victorian age, photos of Malton in those days and pictures of characters from Dickens novels, and of other writers he knew personally. It is well worth a visit and is open Saturdays until the end of October, 10am-2pm.