by Jenni Horn

jhorn@thekmgroup.co.uk

A film about the life of Charles Dickens has been screened for the first time.

The documentary, Charles Dickens’ England, takes viewers on a journey of all the most important places, towns and cities which were an inspiration to the author.

The Medway Towns feature heavily in the film - including Ordnance Terrace in Chatham where Dickens lived as a child, the church yard at Cooling which Dickens used as inspiration for the opening chapter of Great Expectations and Dickens’ chalet at Eastgate House in Rochester.

The documentary, presented by one of Britain’s best known actors, Sir Derek Jacobi, was shot in more than 100 locations around the UK. Many of the places, such as the interior of 58 Lincoln’s Inn Fields where Dickens first read in public, and Gad’s Hill in Higham, where he lived before he died, are not open to the public and have rarely been filmed.

The documentary team spoke to a Dickensian expert in each place they visited. In Medway it was 73-year-old Thelma Grove (pictured, below, by Mike Gunnill) from the Rochester and Chatham Dickens Fellowship.

She said: "I spoke with Derek Jacobi at the Leather Bottle pub in Cobham and showed him all the Dickens memorabilia there and also filmed with him at The Vines in Rochester where we spoke about Restoration House.

"I apologised to Derek Jacobi afterwards because I felt terrible for doing all the talking when he was the presenter. But he told me that’s how it was supposed to be."

The world premiere of the film took place in London last week and the film will be shown on Sky Arts later this year.

The Kent premiere took place on Wednesday, July 29, at Cineworld, Rochester, when Thelma will be seeing herself on the big screen for the first time. The grandmother from Cuxton had to miss the premiere in London because she fell and broke her hip.

She said: "I was bitterly disappointed I couldn’t go to the premiere. But I’m hoping to go along tonight and really looking forward to it."

To buy tickets, visit www.cineworld.co.uk