LENOX, MA. The great-great-grandson of the literary legend Charles Dickens, British actor Gerald Charles Dickens returns to Ventfort Hall to present a one-man theatrical performance of his ancestor’s classic work A Christmas Carol on Thursday, November 30, and Friday, December 1. An elegant tea will be served at 5:30 pm followed by his performance at 6:30 pm.

Using his own adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic Christmas tale, Gerald plays 26 characters using his vocal and physical talents to bring each scene vividly to life. In 1993, he created as his first one-man show, A Christmas Carol, inspired by Charles’ own energetic readings of the 1860s in the United States and elsewhere.

Gerald’s performance of A Christmas Carol has received standing ovations the world over: “The audience was rapt, as it was in Charles’ day!” “Not a reading or a dramatization but the best of both.” “Dickens the actor gets full value from Dickens the writer.” “A Dickens of a performance.”

Gerald Dickens has been performing one-man stage shows based on the life and works of his ancestor for over twenty years, undertaking major tours of both the UK and America each year. As part of his performance of the atmospheric ghost story The Signalman, Gerald began to research the circumstances behind the Staplehurst rail crash of June 9, 1865 which led to his writing of a new book, Dickens and Staplehurst.

Tickets for A Christmas Carol, which includes an elegant tea, are $75. Ventfort Hall will be in full Christmas Regalia! Reservations are required and can be made on line at https://gildedage.org/events/ or by calling (413) 637-3206. Please note that all tickets are nonrefundable and non-exchangeable. Payment is required to make a reservation for an event. The historical mansion is located at 104 Walker Street in Lenox.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated by the Massachusetts Cultural Council as an important partner of the Lenox Cultural District, one of the five such Berkshire County districts, Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum was built in 1893 for George and Sarah Morgan, the sister of legendary financier J. Pierpont Morgan.

Self-guided tours of the historic mansion are offered daily, as well as lectures, such exhibitions as the Bellefontaine Collection, concerts, theater, ghost tours and hunts as well as other programs. This elegant Jacobean-Revival Berkshire “cottage” is open to the public year-round and is available for private rental. Ventfort Hall, also an Official Project of Save America’s Treasures program sponsored by The White House, has undergone substantial restoration, which continues.