Word: micawberism
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Theater Royal (Sat. 7 p.m., NBC). Dickens' Mr. Micawber's Difficulties, starring Sir Laurence Olivier.
Actually, the varied fare proved less a virtue than a vice. By Dickens standards, too much of Williams' material was close to mediocre. The brief annals of Paul Dombey exposed Dickens' mawkish side; a little-known ghost story, The Signalman, raised no goose pimples. Surprisingly, the one real...
Today, Ibsen-dotting every i, megaphoning every idea-seems most merciless toward his audience. And the current production is not only didactic, but thoroughly inept. Maurice Evans, for example, portrays Hialmar so broadly that he might be playing Micawber, so stagily that he might be spouting blank verse.
Partridge clears Charles Dickens of all responsibility for the expression "go to the dickens," a Victorian nice-nellyism for "go to the devil." But Dickens' perpetually optimistic Mr. Micawber produced micawberish and the pompous Mr. Bumble lent his name to incompetence forever after. Similarly, a hangman named Derrick is...
By last week, the note was still unanswered, and Washington still did not know what to do. Such shilly-shallying in the face of Peiping's provocation stirred the good, grey New York Times to red-hot anger, which was shared by more & more Americans. Wrote the Times: "Able...