IF Charles Dickens were alive today, he could easily be a scriptwriter on EastEnders.

It’s not hard to see similarities between the characters Dickens set in mid-Victorian London and those of Albert Square. And modern-day soaps owe much to the way Dickens produced his stories, in serialised episodes with a cliffhanger at the end of each one.

But it doesn’t take a big budget TV production to bring the great novelist’s characters to life. Just a terrific actor of the calibre of Robert Powell, his voice familiar from scores of TV voiceovers, and readings just llike the ones Dickens gave and which made him the most successful author of his time.

Powell was probably as familiar to younger members of the audience as Mark Williams in Holby City as he was to older ones for his famous portrayal of Christ in Zeffirelli’s Jesus Of Nazareth in the 1970s. He was partnered by actress Elizabeth Garvie, who raised an unintentional laugh when she discovered her script was missing a page.

The selected passages ranged from the shocking violence of Pip confronted by the runaway convict Magwitch in Great Expectations (“Keep still you little devil or I’ll cut your throat”); the long-suffering devotion of Mrs Micawber in David Copperfield (“I will never desert Mr Micawber”); to the hungry desperation of Oliver Twist (“Please sir, I want some more”).

The linking biography reminded us not only of Dickens’ own experience of poverty, and its influence on his ideas of social reform, but also of how the rewards of celebrity, and its drawbacks, are nothing new.

Interludes from Christine Crowshaw (piano) and Clive Conway (flute) provided a musical diversion.