Yesterday we attended a Sunday afternoon Christmas gathering. The highlight was the superb readings from Charles Dickens tales, by Ian Cullen, and his wife Yvonne Quenet, each having a Christmas theme. Some from which they read were,
- David Copperfield: including Wilkins Micawber’s magnificent invocation, which ended, “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
- A Tale of Two Cities: Sydney Carlton’s speech before his execution by guillotine, which ended with the lines, ”It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
- A Christmas Carol: at the end of the book with Ebenezer Scrooge’s expressed redemption, “A merry Christmas, Bob!” said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. “A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another I, Bob Cratchit.”
You may, or may not, know that Ian Cullen, is also a councillor on Surrey Heath Borough Council. Can’t be many councils that have the benefit of an actor on the council.
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