There's a #stage version of #CharlesDickens "Our Mutual Friend" on in London: "London Tide" with songs by #PJHarvey. Unsure how well it will work without seeing staging and hearing singing, but it's my favourite Dickens, so I'm getting the script to read. https://shop.nationaltheatre.org.uk/collections/playtexts/products/london-tide-based-on-our-mutual-friend-by-charles-dickens #Plays #Dickens #Theatre #Play #MusicalTheatre #19thCentury #NineteenthCentury #VictorianLiterature #Adaptation #NationalTheatre #OurMutualFriend #LondonTide #Books #London

Poor doll’s dressmaker! How often so dragged down by hands that should have raised her up; how often so misdirected when losing her way on the eternal road, and asking guidance! Poor, poor little doll’s dressmaker!

#OurMutualFriend
#CharlesDickens

As they went on with their supper, Lizzie tried to bring her round to that prettier and better state. But, the charm was broken. The person of the house was the person of a house full of sordid shames and cares, with an upper room in which that abased figure was infecting even innocent sleep with sensual brutality and degradation. The doll’s dressmaker had become a little quaint shrew; of the world, worldly; of the earth, earthy.

#OurMutualFriend
#CharlesDickens

‘I am sure you would do no such horrible thing,’ said Lizzie.
‘Shouldn’t I? Well; perhaps I shouldn’t. But I should like to!’
‘I am equally sure you would not.’
‘Not even like to? Well, you generally know best. Only you haven’t always lived among it as I have lived—and your back isn’t bad and your legs are not queer.’

#OurMutualFriend
#CharlesDickens

When he was asleep, I’d make a spoon red hot, and I’d have some boiling liquor bubbling in a saucepan, and I’d take it out hissing, and I’d open his mouth with the other hand—or perhaps he’d sleep with his mouth ready open—and I’d pour it down his throat, and blister it and choke him.’
#OurMutualFriend
#CharlesDickens

Lizzie laid a cloth upon the little bench (more handy for the person of the house than an ordinary table), and put upon it such plain fare as they were accustomed to have, and drew up a stool for herself.

‘Now for supper! What are you thinking of, Jenny darling?’
‘I was thinking,’ she returned, coming out of a deep study, ‘what I would do to Him, if he should turn out a drunkard.’

#OurMutualFriend
#CharlesDickens

Seeing another emphatic ‘What’ upon its way, he evaded it by complying and was heard to shuffle heavily up stairs, and shut his door, and throw himself on his bed. Within a little while afterwards, Lizzie came down.
‘Shall we have our supper, Jenny dear?’
‘Ah! bless us and save us, we need have something to keep us going,’ returned Miss Jenny, shrugging her shoulders.
#OurMutualFriend
#CharlesDickens

‘If you were treated as you ought to be,’ said Miss Wren, ‘you’d be fed upon the skewers of cats’ meat;—only the skewers, after the cats had had the meat. As it is, go to bed.’
When he stumbled out of the corner to comply, he again put out both his hands, and pleaded: ‘Circumstances over which no control—’
‘Get along with you to bed!’ cried Miss Wren, snapping him up. ‘Don’t speak to me. I’m not going to forgive you. Go to bed this moment!’
#OurMutualFriend
#CharlesDickens

He obeyed. And if anything could have made him look more abject or more dismally ridiculous than before, it would have been his so displaying himself.
‘Here’s but seven and eightpence halfpenny!’ exclaimed Miss Wren, after reducing the heap to order. ‘Oh, you prodigal old son! Now you shall be starved.’
‘No, don’t starve me,’ he urged, whimpering.
#OurMutualFriend
#CharlesDickens

‘Is this all?’ demanded the person of the house, when a confused heap of pence and shillings lay on the table.
‘Got no more,’ was the rueful answer, with an accordant shake of the head.
‘Let me make sure. You know what you’ve got to do. Turn all your pockets inside out, and leave ‘em so!’ cried the person of the house.
#OurMutualFriend
#CharlesDickens

‘Spent a fortune out of your wages, I’ll be bound!’ said the person of the house. ‘Put it here! All you’ve got left! Every farthing!’
Such a business as he made of collecting it from his dogs’-eared pockets; of expecting it in this pocket, and not finding it; of not expecting it in that pocket, and passing it over; of finding no pocket where that other pocket ought to be!
#OurMutualFriend
#CharlesDickens

‘Shouldn’t like it. Poor shattered invalid. Trouble nobody long,’ cried the wretched figure.
‘Come, come!’ said the person of the house, tapping the table near her in a business-like manner, and shaking her head and her chin; ‘you know what you’ve got to do. Put down your money this instant.’
The obedient figure began to rummage in its pockets.’
#OurMutualFriend
#CharlesDickens

‘I’ll circumstance you and control you too,’ retorted the person of the house, speaking with vehement sharpness, ‘if you talk in that way. I’ll give you in charge to the police, and have you fined five shillings when you can’t pay, and then I won’t pay the money for you, and you’ll be transported for life. How should you like to be transported for life?’
#OurMutualFriend
#CharlesDickens

‘I wish you had been taken up, and locked up,’ said the person of the house. ‘I wish you had been poked into cells and black holes, and run over by rats and spiders and beetles. I know their tricks and their manners, and they’d have tickled you nicely. Ain’t you ashamed of yourself?’
‘Yes, my dear,’ stammered the father.
#OurMutualFriend
#CharlesDickens

There was something in that emphasized ‘What,’ which absurdly frightened the figure. As often as the person of the house worked her way round to it—even as soon as he saw that it was coming—he collapsed in an extra degree.
#OurMutualFriend
#CharlesDickens

The very breathing of the figure was contemptible, as it laboured and rattled in that operation, like a blundering clock.
‘Slave, slave, slave, from morning to night,’ pursued the person of the house, ‘and all for this! What do you mean by it?’
#OurMutualFriend
#CharlesDickens

Not with any sense worthy to be called a sense, of this dire reversal of the places of parent and child, but in a pitiful expostulation to be let off from a scolding.
‘I know your tricks and your manners,’ cried Miss Wren. ‘I know where you’ve been to!’ (which indeed it did not require discernment to discover). ‘Oh, you disgraceful old chap!’
#OurMutualFriend
#CharlesDickens

The shaking figure, unnerved and disjointed from head to foot, put out its two hands a little way, as making overtures of peace and reconciliation. Abject tears stood in its eyes, and stained the blotched red of its cheeks. The swollen lead-coloured under lip trembled with a shameful whine. The whole indecorous threadbare ruin, from the broken shoes to the prematurely-grey scanty hair, grovelled.
#OurMutualFriend
#CharlesDickens

‘Oh-h-h!’ cried the person of the house, pointing her little finger, ‘You bad old boy! Oh-h-h you naughty, wicked creature! What do you mean by it?’
#OurMutualFriend
#CharlesDickens

To which the person of the house, stretching out her arm in an attitude of command, replied with irresponsive asperity: ‘Go along with you! Go along into your corner! Get into your corner directly!’
The wretched spectacle made as if he would have offered some remonstrance; but not venturing to resist the person of the house, thought better of it, and went and sat down on a particular chair of disgrace.
#OurMutualFriend
#CharlesDickens