No Thoroughfare

In 1867 Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins collaborated to produce a stage play titled No Thoroughfare: A Drama: In Five Acts.

The story contains crafted descriptions, well-drawn and diverse characters, eerie and exotic backgrounds, mystery, semi-concealed identities, brinkmanship with death, romance, the eventual triumph of Good over Evil, and many other elements expected in classic Dickens.

The stage play follows a similar plotline to the novel, but is compressed and made particularly dramatic in the fourth act, which is set in the Swiss Alps.

The tension builds to a spectacular scene in which Obenreizer, the villain, confronts the hero George Vendale, at the side of a mountain gorge.

However, on 2 June 2007 Primavera Productions produced a staged reading, directed by Tom Littler, at the King's Head Theatre in London.

First edition cover
No Thoroughfare by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins . Left to right: Joey Ladle ( Benjamin Webster ), Sally Goldstraw (Mrs. Alfred Mellon), George Vendale ( Henry G. Neville ), Jules Obenreizer ( Charles Albert Fechter ), Marguerite ( Carlotta Leclercq ), Walter Wilding ( John Billington ), and Bintrey ( George G. Belmore ).