Girls help celebrate Charles Dickens' 200th birthday (From Richmond and Twickenham Times)

Epsom and Tadworth girls help celebrate Dickens' 200th birthday

9:01am Thursday 9th February 2012 in News

Two girls from Epsom and Tadworth performed for the family of Charles Dickens at a bicentenary dinner to mark what would have been the author’s 200th birthday last week.

Jessica Stevens, 15, from Hook Road in Epsom, and Cloe Guyon-Palfrene, 15, from Merefield Gardens in Tadworth, performed as part of the West End Kids at the official Dickens Bicentennial Dinner at Mansion House in London on February 7.

Hosted by the Lord Mayor of the City of London, David Wootton, the performance troupe entertained diners with a specially arranged programme of Dickensian song and dance.

Guests included Mark Dickens, Charles Dickens’s great great grandson, Matthew Dent, designer of a £2 coin being issued by The Royal Mint to commemorate the bicentenary, and English actor Sir Patrick Stewart who read from A Christmas Carol.

The girls performed with their troupe a number of songs from some of Dicken’s most loved works including A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Scrooge and Oliver.

Dr Florian Schweizer, director of the Charles Dickens Museum and Dickens 2012, said: “Dickens was fascinated by the stage and as a young man had seriously considered becoming an actor. It seems only fitting that we celebrate his birthday with Dickensian music performed by the stage stars of the future.”

All proceeds will be donated to Great Expectations, the Charles Dickens Museum’s £3.1m redevelopment project.

The museum houses the world’s most important collection of Dickens material and is the only surviving London home of Dickens.

For more information visit westendkids.co.uk