About Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was born in Landport, Portsmouth, England, the second of eight children in a family continually plagued by debt. A legacy brought release from the nightmare of debtors’ prison and child labor and afforded him a few years of formal schooling. He worked as an attorney’s clerk and newspaper reporter until his early writings brought him the amazing success that was to be his for the remainder of his life. He was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era, and he remains popular, responsible for some of English literature’s most iconic characters.
About Roger Worrod
Roger Worrod was born in Coventry (UK) in April 1939. When the family was evacuated in WWII, he attended the village school in Burghead (Morayshire, Scotland), where his father was working on the Whitley bombers stationed at Lossiemouth. Back in Coventry, Worrod passed the 11+ and went on to Bablake School, Coventry. After training as an industrial chemist, he followed his first love, theatre, and won a place at RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London). His career has been varied and wide-ranging: acting extensively in the theatre in the UK, where he was also Director of “Shakespeare Today” and “Modern Theatre Group”, before moving to Italy in 1968, where he performed and dubbed many films into English and Italian. He cofounded and was Director of “Florence Rep” theatre in Florence, Italy, which he partly funded through his own “School Of Spoken English.” Now resident in Switzerland, he holds Swiss and British passports.