From 1930 to 1936, Mikhail Bulgakov worked at the Moscow Art Theater as an assistant director. During this period, the writer was involved in staging classic works, one of which was Charles Dickens’ novel “Posthumous Notes of the Pickwick Club”. Mikhail Afanasyevich worked together with the playwright Natalia Venkstern.

The production of “The Pickwick Club” is also interesting because Mikhail Afanasyevich tried acting in it. As friends and acquaintances of the writer recall, he had talent as an actor and wanted to play in the theater. Bulgakov asked for two roles in the Moscow Art Theater — Hetman in “The Days of the Turbins” and the judge in “Pickwick’s Club” based on the novel by Dickens. He did get the role of the judge.

The dress rehearsal of “The Pickwick Club” was held on November 3, 1934. Its participants recalled that the writer played like a professional actor. Vadim Shverubovich, who worked at the Moscow Art Theater, said,

The theater historian Vitaly Vilenkin recalled,

At the end of 1934 Bulgakov together with other actors took part in the recording of “The Pickwick Club” at the Radio Center. In memory of this performance, Mikhail Afanasyevich kept on his desk a plywood figure of the judge, made from a sketch by theater artist Peter Williams. Bulgakov met him at the rehearsals of “The Pickwick Club”, and very soon they became friends. Peter Williams was one of the first listeners of the novel about the devil.