The Post Quiz: A Christmas Carol - Answers

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A Christmas Carol: Answers

Did you know all this? Then you might be a Telegraph reader. That's where we 'stole' these factoids from. You can read more fascinating facts about the classic story in this 'Interesting Literature' blog. (We read the web with your curiosity in mind.)

Answers:

  1. What did historian Thomas Carlyle do after reading A Christmas Carol?
    • Go out and buy a turkey. (That scene must have made him hungry.)
  2. Dickens based A Christmas Carol on another story he had written. Which one?
    • 'The Goblins Who Stole a Sexton'. (From The Pickwick Papers. Gabriel Grub was the original Scrooge.
  3. Where did Dickens work out his plots?
    • On very long walks – 15-20 miles. (We're surprised Bluebottle never ran into him.)
  4. Dickens sued Parley's Illustrated Library for pirating (plagiarising) A Christmas Carol. How did Parley's react?
    • They did a Donald Trump and declared bankruptcy. (Nothing is new. Dickens got stuck with £700 in court costs.)
  5. A Christmas Carol became a New York City musical right away. (No word on whether the songs included the lyric about 'razzleberry dressing'.) On the opening night, why couldn't the audience hear the bass drum when Marley's ghost came out of the trapdoor?
    • The audience was fighting. (It was New York City. The brawl had probably spilled over from the set of 'Gangs of New York'.)
  6. Dickens gave readings of A Christmas Carol to packed houses, but some people disapproved. Why?
    • They thought it was undignified for an author to give public performances for money. (Writers had a different reputation back then. Not that they deserved it.)
  7. Dickens had a performance regimen to keep his voice up – after all, the readings took three hours. What did he always drink during the interval?
    • A cup of beef tea. (Ha! Fooled you, I bet.)
  8. Dickens always read in front of large screens. Why?
    • To project the sound in the days before microphones. (When you don't have technology, you use Science.)
  9. Audiences really enjoyed Dickens's performances. What had he invented?
    • The one-man show: Dickens played all the parts. (And set a precedent for many other actors, including Sir Patrick Stewart.)
  10. What was remarkable about Dickens's performance of 15 March 1870?
    • It was his last performance: he died three months later. (And there wasn't a dry eye in the house. No word on whether the Ninth Doctor showed up.)

Are you going to read, listen to, watch, or attend a performance of A Christmas Carol this December? If so, spare a thought for its remarkable author. We bless him, every one of us.

A terrified Scrooge awaits three ghostly visitors.
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Dmitri Gheorgheni

19.12.16 Front Page

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