The 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens has seen the publication of Claire Tomalin’s biography [1], but cinema is reverting to her earlier book The Invisible Woman to mark the bicentenary. The book is the biography of Nelly Ternan, the young actress who became Dickens’ mistress and prompted him to erect a barricade down the middle of the marital bedroom, before leaving his wife altogether.
Filming has begun on an adaptation by Abi Morgan, whose previous screenplays include Shame [2] and The Iron Lady [3]. It will star Felicity Jones, whose most highly regarded film performance to date is in Like Crazy [4]. Dickens will be played by Ralph Fiennes, who will also continue the new career as a director he embarked on with Coriolanus [5]. The film also features Kristin Scott Thomas [6] as Nelly Ternan’s mother and Tom Hollander [7] as Wilkie Collins, author of The Woman in White and friend of Dickens. It’s not Fiennes’s only contribution to the bicentenary. He plays Magwitch in Mike Newell’s film version of Great Expectations.