This excellent 3 part series chronicles the life and work of Charles Dickens and mixes documentary with interviews featuring actors paying Dickens and his family/friends (I am not usually a fan of the docu/drama format but this is an exception). This whole project is a labour of love of the writer Peter Ackroyd and it based on his Dickens biography published in 1991. Ackroyd himself presents the documentary parts talking with great authority about his subject while the mock interviews are a delight. Anton Lesser is brilliant as Dickens (the staging of Dickens reading excerpts from his books are a highlight) and is matched by Miriam Margoyles as Dickens' wife. But best of all was Geoffrey Palmer, who is faultless as Thackeray. Not knowing a great deal about Dickens' life before I watched this, I now feel I know quite a bit and am looking forward to reading Ackroyd's book.
