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Acclaimed actor and writer Simon Callow talks about the Dickens who was driven as much by performance and showmanship as by literary endeavour. His new biography, Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World, explores the central importance of the theatre to the life of the greatest storyteller in the English language. Dickens was obsessed with the stage, beginning with his early years as a child entertainer in Portsmouth. He was a great mimic who wrote, acted in and stage-managed plays. And, says Callow, his imaginative writing was theatrical, both in terms of plot and characterisation.

Callow is an actor, writer and director who has appeared in many films, including Four Weddings and a Funeral. He played Dickens in a hugely successful one-man show The Mystery of Charles Dickens on the London stage and on Broadway.