LOCAL: The Annual Dickens Festival grows with more events and increased community involvement.
By Matt Kaye, Staff Writer
Riverside is known for its history. Families continue their legacies in the city, and architectural remnants preserve the rich history of Riverside as an example of California’s growth.
While Riverside continues to grow, the city’s past reappears periodically. On February 22 and 23, the annual Dickens Festival resurfaced. This year marks the 21st anniversary of the festival, and was welcomed with more excitement than ever before.
The Dickens Festival explores the Victorian lifestyle that most of Riverside sprang from. Festival attractions include a live Charles Dickens impersonator and events that celebrate his many novels. The new attraction at the festival this year was “The Trial of Jack the Ripper.” The trial, which took place in the Riverside County Historic Courthouse, explains the story of the notorious but anonymous man who committed at least five murders in London. “The Trial of Jack the Ripper” is not a true story but rather the creation of an attorney who works in Riverside County. Attorney Richard Reed, the writer, made the new attraction to increase the festival’s variety. Reed called the story “the most famous unsolved mystery of the nineteenth century.”
The Dickens Festival garnered even more excitement with its contests. The two main contests were offered exclusively for high school students in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and included a drama competition and a writing competition. In the drama contest, students enacted scenes from Dickens’ The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The students were then judged based off of their performances and each school received $150 for their participation, while the three best schools moved on to perform at the festival itself. The writing contest involved the same novel. Since Dickens never completed the novel, writers were tasked with creating a possible ending. The best and most original endings received monetary prizes from $25 to $100.
The Dickens Festival has always been a refresher course in the history of the nineteenth century. It will continue to grow, always serving as a reminder of that period.