It is fair to say last weekend’s celebrations at The Lion Hotel, Shrewsbury, to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens exceeded our greatest expectations.
It started on Friday when we had coverage of the event on every BBC Midlands Today news bulletin during the day and then they sent a camera crew and reporter Ben Sidwell to interview me, organiser Chris Eldon-Lee, hotel owner Howard Astbury and Gerald Dickens.
Following the filming we had excellent publicity on prime time Midlands Today during their main Friday evening programme.
Tickets had already sold well but after the TV coverage the hotel reception was bombarded with calls from people trying to come to the event.
To try to satisfy some of the demand Chris, Howard and co-organiser Maggie Love managed to fit another around 20 seats each night in the hotel ballroom and all events easily sold out.
On Friday night, actor Gerald Dickens, the great, great grandson of Charles, performed Mr Dickens is Coming, a light-hearted and varied look at the life and character of his great, great grandfather.
Gerald, pictured in the middle with local extras in the A Christmas Carol which was filmed in Shrewsbury in 1984, used diary extracts and observations from those who knew and worked with him for the presentation.
With a full house, subtle lighting, plants brought in and the two fires lit for the first time it more than 50 years the ballroom atmosphere was superb.
After the interval Gerald read an excerpt from A Christmas Carol on the very stage Charles read from more than 150 years ago.
Charles Dickens is believed to have stayed at least three times at the hotel in the mid 19th century, performed in the hotel ballroom and at the nearby Music Hall.
Gerald and his wife, Liz, who stayed in the same hotel bedroom for the weekend as Charles did more than 150 years earlier, said it was a very memorable occasion.
Liz said she wondered what Gerald was doing the first night when he saw him putting his hands up to try to touch the ceiling.
Then she recalled the famous letter Charles had written to one of his daughters on August 12, 1858, when he told her: “We have the strangest little rooms, the ceilings of which I can touch with my hand. The windows bulge out over the street as if they were little stern windows of a ship. And a door opens out of the sitting room on to a little open gallery with plants in it where one leans over a queer old rail.”
It was fascinating talking to the many guests in the audience who had so many fond memories of staying at the hotel and coming to the dances in the 1950s and 60s in the same ballroom.
Even Saturday’s snow could not deter people as there was another full house for Sikes and Nancy, which is Victorian theatre at its most dramatic.
When Dickens performed what he called The Murder, he judged the success of the evening by the number of ladies who had fainted with horror.
After the interval Gerald read a different excerpt from A Christmas Carol.
Then yesterday (Sunday) it was Christmas Carol Day, which recalls the celebrated George C. Scott’s film of A Christmas Carol which was shot in Shrewsbury in 1984 and many of the cast and crew stayed at The Lion.
Many of the 450 local people who were extras in the film came to reminisce about the film as local historian David Trumper gave a fascinating hour-long lecture in the morning with photographs of the making of the film.
He talked about how long landmarks such as the Elizabethan Market Hall, the town square, the Parade Shopping Centre, the Crescent, Tanner’s wine shop and local shops and houses which had all been transformed for the filming.
Then five tourist guides, including Town Crier Martin Wood, who was Edward Woodward’s stand-in and the double for Michael Carter who played the Spirit of Christmas Future, then took the audience for a detailed tour of all the town sites used in the film.
Martin is pictured at the front on Gerald’s right in the photograph.
After lunch when many of the extras swapped memories with each other Flicks in the Sticks put on a large screen showing of A Christmas Carol.
It was an excellent weekend for all, and the start of a busy time for Gerald Dickens, who is attending a special service tomorrow (Tuesday) at Westminster Abbey and then a lunch to celebrate the exact day 200 years when Charles Dickens was born.
Many visitors took the opportunity over the weekend to buy a signed copy of my book, Four Centuries at The Lion Hotel, which tells the inn’s fascinating history through its many famous guests including Charles Dickens.
They also persuaded Gerald Dickens, who wrote the foreword to the book, to sign it as well.
If you would like a signed copy of the book for the special price of £6 including postage within the UK, or £8 anywhere in the world, email me on John@jbutterworth.plus.com
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