What can the impact of the theatrical adaptations of the novels of Charles Dickens teach us today about how a cultural phenomenon sweeps across continents? A Marie Curie fellow looked into copyright issues, artistic control and popular crazes to shine an intriguing light on creative endeavour today.
Game of Thrones: watched by millions in cultures across the world, its viewers vastly out-numbering the readers of the books behind the series, is a cultural phenomenon of our time. Travel back 150 years and the George R. R. Martin of the period was Charles Dickens. Although his viewing numbers were far lower, it was the dramatic adaptations of the books, then as now, that drew audiences in their droves where ever they were performed. The media may be different: the mechanism is the same.
Further details: What the popular craze for Dickens at the turn of the last century can teach us today