Allusionist 69. How the Dickens Stole Christmas
Charles Dickens wrote about the plight of the impoverished and destitute members of British society. So how come his name is a synonym for rosy-cheeked, full-stomached, fattened-goose, hearty merry "God bless us every one" Christmas?
Avery Trufelman and Katie Mingle of 99% Invisible report from the streets of Victorian London at the annual Dickens Christmas Fair in Daly City, California, while historian Greg Jenner explains the origins of the festive traditions for which Dickens gets the credit, without even wanting the credit - in fact, his motivation for writing A Christmas Carol was far from a cash-in on Christmas.
Read moreAllusionist 50: Under the Covers - part I
Escape into the loving embrace of a romance novel - although don't think you'll be able to escape gender politics while you're in there. Bea and Leah Koch, proprietors of the romance-only bookstore The Ripped Bodice, consider the genre; and publisher Lisa Milton scrolls through the 109-year history of the imprint that epitomises romance novels, Mills & Boon.
Read moreAllusionist 36: Big Lit
'Classics' started off meaning Latin and Greek works, then literary works that smacked of similar, and now - what, exactly? Books that are full of bonnets and dust?
Read moreAllusionist 19: Architecting About Dance
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“Talking about music is like dancing about architecture” is a problematic statement: not just because nobody can agree on who came up with it, but because dancing about architecture doesn’t seem particularly far-fetched. Talking about dance, however - that's really difficult. How do you put a wordless form of communication into words?
Audio describer Alice Sanders and choreographer Steven Hoggett take the issue for a twirl.
READING ABOUT DANCE IS LIKE READING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE:
If you want to find out more about "[doing a thing] about [a thing] is like [doing a different thing] about [another thing]" adages, take a look here and here.
Further werewolf reading-matter: find out about Old English wolf-words; read this plea for feminist werewolves/wifwolves; and this, apparently, is The Problem with Female Werewolves (too hairy for this bikini-waxed world?).
You want to learn Labanotation? Don't let me stop you.
You want to learn about the Step Up series of films? Don't let me stop you.
Steven Hoggett talks more about how he goes about his work, here and here.
Here is the transcript of this episode.
RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
poetaster
CREDITS:
Alice Sanders writes very funny articles and blogs. Find her at twitter.com/wernerspenguin.
Steven Hoggett is working on exciting forthcoming projects including the stage adaptation of Disney's Pinocchio, AND the Harry Potter play. You'll have to wait a little while for those; but his Burt Bacharach show, Close To You, is about to open at London's Criterion Theatre. The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-Time is on in the UK and on Broadway, and Once seems to be all over the place.
The non-speech noises in this episode were:
Allusionist Theme by Martin Austwick
The Nutcracker, Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty by Tchaikovsky
A snippet of the film version of A Chorus Line
Cinderella by Prokofiev
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. Thanks to Eleanor McDowall and Miranda Sawyer.
Dance along to facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman.
