Image Credit : Dickens' Dream by Robert William Buss
London • Stories • Legacy
Step Into Dickensian London
A richly imagined journey through the streets, stories and spirit of Charles Dickens’ world.
A personal introduction
I’m Oliver Dickens
For the final seventeen years of his life, Dickens toured Britain and America giving public readings of his own work. His first public reading took place in 1853, and what began as an occasional reading developed into a hugely successful second career as a performer.
He had always wanted to be an actor.
I rather like the fact that I can now follow him onto the stage.
My aim is to bring life not only to the books, but to the way Dickens himself experienced and presented his stories — using his own words and, where possible, his own edits and adaptations.
Because Dickens was never simply a name on a bookshelf.
He was a living, breathing storyteller.
Following in Dickens' Footsteps
Dickens Always Wanted to Be an Actor
One of the things I find most fascinating about Charles Dickens is that, despite becoming one of the world's most celebrated novelists, he always had a great love of performance. In the later years of his life, he increasingly devoted himself to public readings of his own work.
His first public reading took place in 1853. What followed was a hugely successful seventeen-year career taking him around Britain and America, performing his stories to packed audiences.
He edited his own work specifically for performance, adapted passages for dramatic effect and developed a remarkable ability to transform himself into his characters.
In other words, he wasn't simply reading his books. He was performing them. That tradition is at the heart of what I do today.
A city of contrasts
From Actor to Dickens
I graduated from the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art (LAMDA) in 2014 and have worked across a wide variety of roles in the film and theatre industries, both in front of and behind the camera.
My screen work includes appearances in multi-award-winning short films such as Good Choice, Joseph and The Gnome.
I have also worked with 136 Films, a collaborative production company established while studying Writing, Directing and Performance at the University of York, helping to produce a number of short films.
Following in Dickens' Footsteps
My theatre credits include
• Ferdinand — The Duchess of Malfi
• Sebastian — Twelfth Night
• Edmund — King Lear
• Vershinin — Three Sisters
• The Boy — Blood Wedding
• Jonathan Harker — Dracula
• Eilert Lövborg — Hedda Gabler
Dickens' writing is extraordinarily theatrical. His characters have voices, rhythms, mannerisms and personalities that demand to be heard, not simply read silently from a page.
A Rather Unusual Family Connection
Charles Dickens is not simply a writer I admire.
He is part of the family.
That makes working with his writing a particularly extraordinary experience, but it also comes with a certain responsibility.
The stories have already earned their place.It is me who has to live up to them.
My LAMDA training, my experience as an actor and my love of language all play their part. But ultimately, the writing has to come first.
Dickens had an extraordinary command of language.
He could be hilarious, sentimental, grotesque, furious, tender and deeply moving — sometimes within the same few pages. My job is to respect that writing while giving it the life and energy it deserves in performance.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
I come from a long line of actors
Charles, My Father and Me
One of the more unusual experiences of my career has been performing A Christmas Carol alongside my father.
In 2025, we performed together for the Lady Mayor's Appeal, bringing three generations of Dickens together through one of Charles Dickens' most famous stories.
Charles wrote it. My father and I performed it.
And although the great man himself was unfortunately unable to attend, his words were certainly there. It is difficult to imagine a more appropriate family tradition to continue.
I will be performing another A Christmas Carol for the new Lord Mayor this December.
Three Generations of Dickens
Dickens Around the World
My work as a Dickens performer has taken me beyond Britain as well as around it.
Since 2018, I have performed a one-man version of A Christmas Carol at the annual Dickens on the Strand festival in Galveston, Texas, with the exception of the Covid-affected 2020 festival. I have also performed at the Charles Dickens Museum in London, the Mansion House, Guildhall, Livery Halls and a variety of historic venues throughout the UK. In May 2026, I performed The Trial of Pickwick and The Murder of Nancy at the Charles Dickens Museum, in the room adjacent to where Charles Dickens himself wrote.
There is something wonderfully circular about that. Dickens wrote. Dickens performed. And now, one of his descendants is performing his words in the places where his story continues to be remembered.
What's Next?
There Are Still Plenty of Stories to Tell...
I am currently working on a faithful adaptation of Martin Chuzzlewit, one of Dickens' lesser-known novels.
Dickens himself was remarkably fond of the book, describing it in 1844 as being:
"in a hundred points immeasurably the best of my stories."
I rather admire that level of confidence.
The project is currently in development, alongside my continuing work performing Dickens' stories, readings and talks throughout the UK and internationally.
There are also plenty of other Dickensian projects, performances and events in the works. So this is not a career built around one Christmas story.
It is about celebrating the whole extraordinary world of Charles Dickens.
Why Dickens?
Because the Words Still Work.
Dickens lived in a very different world from ours.
But his characters still make us laugh.
His stories still make us cry.
His observations about people still feel remarkably familiar.
And his language is every bit as powerful when spoken today as it was when he first put pen to paper.
That is what keeps me coming back to the work.
Not simply because Charles Dickens is my ancestor.
Because he was an extraordinary writer. And because, nearly two hundred years later, he still has something to say.
There is wisdom of the head and wisdom of the heart.
Charles Dickens
