Photos: The Broadstairs Dickens Festival 2022

Broadstairs Dickens Festival Photo Carole Adams

Photos by Carole Adams

Top hats, crinoline skirts, Victorian bathing costumes and Queen Victoria have all been spotted in Broadstairs this weekend.

The Dickens Festival is underway and continues until tomorrow (June 19) marking the town’s link to Victorian author Charles Dickens,  who first came to visit in 1837 when he was 25.

Photo Carole Adams

After lodging at 12, High Street, where he worked on ‘Pickwick’, Charles Dickens took a house, which is now part of The Royal Albion Hotel, where he finished ‘Nicholas Nickleby’.

Photo Carole Adams

In 1937, to commemorate the centenary of the author’s first visit, Gladys Waterer, the then resident of Dickens House, conceived the idea of putting on a production of David Copperfield and of having people about the town in Victorian dress to publicise it and the festival was born.

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The Broadstairs Dickens Fellowship was formed the same year and today members meet in Broadstairs on the first Wednesday of each month.

Cricket, gin tasting, the festival play, talks, a Victorian Summer fair and music, the Grand Parade and more all form part of the festival.

Photo Carole Adams

Find more details at https://www.broadstairsdickensfestival.co.uk/

Remaining events

Photo Carole Adams

SATURDAY, 18TH JUNE

3pm Festival Play – A Tale of Two Cities at Sarah Thorne Theatre

5pm “Pursuing Mr Pickwick: in search of real Pickwickians”. The lecture will be presented by Dr. Cindy Sughrue OBE, Director of the Charles Dickens Museum in London York Street Methodist Church Hall Tickets: £8 In advance or £10 on the door (cash)

7pm Dickens Declaimers at Dickens House Museum

7.30pm Festival Play – A Tale of Two Cities at Sarah Thorne Theatre

SUNDAY, 19TH JUNE

10am – 5pm Victorian Summer Fair on Victoria Gardens Punch and Judy – performances during the day

10.45am Take coffee with costumed Dickensians at the Bandstand

11am Barry Wootton and friends exhibition at Holy Trinity Church

11.30am Open-air Church Service at Preachers Knoll

1.30pm Victorian Village Cricket Match on Victoria Gardens

2.30pm Concert by BAE Systems Brass Band on the Bandstand

5pm The Heritage of Gilbert and Sullivan A lecture by Bernard Lockett York Street Methodist Church Hall Tickets: £8 in advance, £10 on the door (cash)

6pm Songs of Praise at Holy Trinity Church

7pm Dickens Declaimers at Dickens House Museum

7.30 pm Festival Play – A Tale of Two Cities at Sarah Thorne Theatre

2 Comments

  1. if you walked about like this on any other occassion you would probably be detained under the mental health act

  2. Id love to know how much this event costs the community/taxpayer and what the economic returns are?.
    Dickens didnt even live in Broadstairs, he holidayed there.

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