Doctor Marigold by Charles Dickens

PERFORMED BY JOHN McMANUS, DIRECTED BY SHAE D’LYN

Saturday, January 25, 2025, at 7:30 pm

At Threefold Auditorium
260 Hungry Hollow Road, Chestnut Ridge, NY

Doctor Marigold is the last of the Christmas numbers compiled by Charles Dickens at the height of his career in 1865. The story, derived by Dickens for his public readings, immerses the listener in the language, customs, and everyday realities of the life and times of the common people of Dickensian England. This extraordinarily complex and profoundly stirring story is about the life of a cheap jack, a man who sells household wares from the footboard of his cart. In his life’s fateful journey, he slowly discovers that all of the marvelous characters he meets, however weak or unjust they may seem, have given him great gifts. At last, he reaches “a greater height of popularity than ever at the cheap jack work” and, as he eats his “beefsteak pudding for one,” he has no expectations for this solitary Christmas Day.