After coming back from Canada, I noted that I had some
catching-up to do on the iPlayer – and first up was the start of a surprisingly
original take on the works of Charles Dickens.
I describe the BBC show Dickensian
as ‘surprisingly original’ because I can’t believe
that no-one had previously thought to take characters from different Dickens
stories and put them into one story. Thus, we have a situation where a young Miss
Havisham from Great Expectations and the
future Lady Dedlock from Bleak House are
best friends (although I guess they didn’t bond over the fact that both of
those characters have been played by Gillian Anderson in previous,
straightforward Dickens adaptations), Mr and Mrs Bumble from Oliver Twist are having Mr Gradgrind
from Hard Times over for dinner, half
the cast seems to have borrowed money from Ebenezer Scrooge and/or pawned
something in the Old Curiosity Shop (or, if they’re really desperate, sold
their valuables to Fagin), and Silas Wegg from Our Mutual Friend runs a pub whose clientele includes Bill Sikes
and Nancy from Oliver Twist, the
afore-mentioned Mr Bumble when he needs a break from Mrs B., Mrs Gamp from Martin Chuzzlewit, Bob Cratchett and an
unseen Mr Pickwick. Oh, and to top things off, Inspector Bucket from Bleak House is investigating the murder
of Scrooge’s late business partner Jacob Marley.
This time, Marley was not dead to begin with – although,
thanks to his as-yet-unidentified assailant, he was by the end of the first
episode. Like Dickens’s stories themselves, Dickensian
boasts a cast of many acting out various storylines which occasionally coincide
with each other – and, like many a Dickens adaptation, it has a number of
actors and actresses who you may recognise from somewhere else (among others,
there’s Tuppence Middleton, Caroline Quentin, Stephen Rea, a couple of blokes
from Spooks and Omid Djalili as a
scene-stealing Mr Venus who, it turns out, is a chiropractor and the early
Victorian equivalent of a forensics expert as well as a taxidermist).
There have been quite a few alternative twists on Dickens
in the past – some time ago, ITV did a spin-off series following the
(mis)adventures of Mr Micawber, while there has also been a novel in which
Sydney Carton escapes the guillotine by agreeing to become a spy, setting up a Flashman-esque adventure at the time of
the French Revolution which I really need to get my hands on sooner or later.
This one, though, is as far as I can see the first to
throw characters from different Dickens stories together, and as a result it’s
a real mish-mash of plots and sub-plots, albeit a highly watchable one. As well
as Inspector Bucket’s investigation, in which several characters are of course
suspects, we’ve got characters who are there for comedy value (the Bumbles, for
there’s nothing quite as absurd as a couple with unrealistic expectations of
social advancement, as well as a sub-plot between gin-loving Mrs Gamp, Silas
Wegg and the latter’s wooden leg that wouldn’t be out of place in a Carry On film), a bit of social
commentary (mainly concerning the twin spectres of debt and poverty, ongoing
themes in Dickens’s works) as well as a few scenarios that are very much the
precursors to the books.
Herein lies a problem for Dickensian – because some of the sub-plots are the events that
precede those of the books, we know what’s going to happen. Amelia Havisham,
for example, has become engaged to the villainous Merryweather Compeyson. If my
knowledge of Great Expectations is
anything to go by, this will result in her being jilted and defrauded, leading
to a lifetime of hating men while wearing her wedding dress and sitting at the
table in her decaying mansion, wedding breakfast untouched. Similarly, as far
as the Bleak House characters go, we
know that Honoria Barbary is going to marry the elderly Sir Leicester Dedlock
even though she’s expecting Captain Hawdon’s child who will be raised by her
spinsterly sister. Bill and Nancy? That’s not going to end well. Oh, and no
need to worry about Tiny Tim being ill – his dad’s boss is going to bankroll
all the medical treatment he needs after experiencing a ghostly vision.
Unless, of course, the writers have a few surprises in
store. They’ve already departed from one Dickens storyline by ensuring that
Little Nell doesn’t die – so who’s to say that, this time, some of the others
aren’t going to get the ending that their creator gave them? That would liven things
up a bit as, the murder investigation aside, it’s all looking a little too
predictable (as I write, the show is 13 episodes into a 20-part series)
The main thing I’ve noticed, though, is how much like a
soap opera this all is, even down to the cliffhanger endings of each half-hour
long episode (Bob Cratchett getting arrested on his daughter’s wedding day was
a good one, while the reveal of Honoria’s pregnancy was anything but a surprise
for reasons outlined above). Could that be because the man behind this series
is one of the writers from EastEnders?
Or maybe it’s to do with the original author, with his multitude of characters
and storylines? We may know of his stories as novels, but when they originally
appeared they did so in regular instalments, spread over the course of months
and even years, and he used cliffhanger endings to ensure that his readers
remained interested enough to buy the next part.
Charles Dickens didn’t just provide the world with a
large amount of interestingly-named and unforgettable characters. He also
invented the concept that we know of today as the soap opera.