John Tallents, of Church Street, Farndon, is following in his footsteps with a performance of A Christmas Carol at the Palace Theatre, Newark, on Sunday, November 28.

He will perform the seasonal piece just as Dickens did more than 100 years ago.

John, 63, said it would be the first time he had performed the show in a proper theatre.

He said: “Mostly I have performed the show in churches, village halls, the Garrick Club, and at the National Hospital for Neurological Disabilities in Putney, which Dickens did a lot of fundraising for but never saw built.”

John first became interested in playing Dickens after seeing Emlyn Williams perform his celebrated Charles Dickens at the Robin Hood Theatre, Averham, in 1970, and then a week later at the Festival Hall, London, and at the Haymarket Theatre a few years later.

He started performing as Dickens in 2005, appearing at the Dickens Museum at 48 Doughty Street, Holborn, in the award-winning mono play, The Sparkler Of Albion.

“The previous actor died and I was asked if I would fill the role,” he said.

“I did this for two or three summers. I performed in such a tiny room you could only get 20 people in at a time. Sometimes I would perform to just three appreciative people.”

John started performing A Christmas Carol five years ago after the vicar of Farndon, the Rev John Quarell, asked if he would do a show for the church, and the production grew from there.

John said that although Dickens died about seven years before the first wax cylinders began to capture sound, a lot had been written about how he performed his work by people who had seen his readings.

John said: “I do try to read the story looking like and sounding as much like Dickens as possible and funnily enough I do seem to have edited my script in the same way Dickens did.

“Dickens, who was hugely popular, especially in America, died when he was 58, so I am a little older than him and my hair is probably greyer than his.”

John, who comes from a continuous line of solicitors, dating back to 1780, got into acting rather late in life.

He studied law before working at Sotheby’s for six years, specialising in oriental ceramics, but decided to become an actor at 29 and trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.

He said: “When I was younger I was always showing off and doing silly voices and I knew being on the stage was the place for me.”

After Sunday, his next performance is at Adlington Hall, Macclesfield, on December 11 with The Signal Man and A Tale Of Two Cities.

He will perform another Dickens’ programme in St Peter’s Church, Farndon, on January 29.