This evocation and recreation of both the power of Dickens' wordcraft, and the social environment in which he would have both written and presented his own work, is flawlessly recreated for us. Anton Lessor is almost eerily channeling Dickens and, as a Royal Academy veteran, assumes the great range of voice and physical attributes of each character he speaks for as he tells his own stories to his small audience of family and friends, before his own fireplace as would have been done in his lifetime. The series is superb, and there is a first-rate "Making of..." bonus DVD which takes the viewer behind the stagesetting to show us how the series was developed. Absolutely powerful, highly recommended, and moving enough to bring me back to a re-reading of several of Dicken's stronger works--David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, and my beloved Christmas Carol--to read with new insight and appreciation.
