Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Margolyes and Dickens: More Best Bits
Miriam Margolyes
Genre: One Person Show, Solo Show, Storytelling, Talk, True-life
Venue: Pleasance at EICC
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
This is a show for all Dickens lovers- theatre lovers and story lovers and most importantly Miriam Margolyes lovers.
Review
On stage; a singular green chair. Velveted and the kind that you’d get in Scandinavia. The ones that look super stylish and you know they’ve been ergonomically designed. Exhibition lights surround the chair like the 3 witches of Macbeth. All hail Miriam. She takes her seat.
Before the show officially starts, she warns us she is liable to fart. This is a warning that weirdly eases the audience for what the tone of the show is to be. Content warnings for this show include farting, swearing and hilarious impersonations. Sounds good to me.
Miriam Margolyes doing a show talking about Charles Dickens deserves context and we got it alright. Miriam explains that Dickens was one of her first loves. The way he was able to bring people alive on paper enthralled Margolyes, who as a child, dreamed of being on stage. The dream died when an acting teacher recommended, she stay off stage- resulting in her career in radio.
Fortunately, she didn’t stay away for too long and began a ‘theatrical profession’ as she states, working in voice acting, films, tv shows and theatre. Miriam’s love for this creative world originated from Dickens- to whom she correlates her life stories back to. She tells us how similar they are as people. She claims they both use art as an outlet to educate people on the misfortunates of the world. Margolyes and Dickens both ‘believe’ politics has a very vital place in the arts.
The flow and coordination of the show is well done. Miriam tells us the story of her life- relating it back to Dickens. She then performs extracts from Dickens’ work. A dramatic monologue is enacted, and the crowd goes wild. It feels rather comforting- like i am being read a bedtime story. The impressions Miriam does of each character is completely immersive and you forget you’re not a watching strait laced theatre show. She knows her performances are great, after all “that’s why I get the big bucks,” she jokes.
Theres a lovely bit at the end of the show where a Q&A takes place. This is where the audience is invited to ask Miriam anything- all be it- if they have a phone they can scan a QR code to pop a question in. I got to hear about Maggie Smith and Miriam going to the same school together. Miriam also told us; she wishes she was her hero; Eileen Akins and according to her; her next big life event is a general election or her own death.
Miriam concludes the show by explaining that she is still learning as she acknowledges her flaws, including voting for Keir Starmer as Prime Minister. Her show is a self-claimed commentary of life and explains the joy in being ‘big and vile’ in her words. “F*** the rest of them” says Miriam when asked about being authentic to yourself. She harks that nobody should matter more to you than yourself- Dickens would agree! Self-love being the beautiful conclusion of the show.
