Episode 2 of Dickensian is also the second Boxing Day instalment of EastEnders writer Tony Jordan’s new 20-part period drama.
But while you’re probably polishing off the first of many, many meals involving increasingly obscure scraps of turkey meat, the good people inside your TV are celebrating Christmas Day.
‘God bless us, every one’ is not a sentence uttered, however. Partly because Tiny Tim does not seem to have a speaking part, and partly because the focus is on another Cratchit kid, Peter, who has affections for miraculously recuperated Little Nell. If Dick Swiveller were in this show he’d probably be relieved. Now, I can say that because that’s a genuine reference to a real character in The Old Curiosity Shop.
I also just wanted to get the chance to say ‘Dick Swiveller’. As snortingly chucklesome Dickens names go it’s right up there with ‘Sloppy’, ‘Skimpole’ and ‘Sweedlepipe’.
With all seriousness though, Dickens remains the king of names. No writer can better sum up an entire personality in a name than he. And if you need further proof look no further than one Ms. Fanny Biggetywitch, assigned to this show only because of her name I’m certain, who noses and gossips at the window and watches a stranger eye his way along the street. It’s Inspector Bucket, assigned to solve the murder of Jacob Marley.
#DickensFact comin’ atcha: Bucket was one of the first detectives in English fiction. He would’ve been the first but Edgar Allen Poe beat Dickens to it by 12 years with Insp. Dupin in Murders in the Rue Morgue. Still, second place ain’t bad, and Bucket’s one of Dickens’ most under-appreciated characters, especially given that in Bleak House he’s essentially a Victorian Columbo.
Stephen Rea makes beautiful work of playing him, stealing every scene he’s in with a laconic, rather sanguine performance that humbly sheaths the character’s razor intelligence. If Dickensian turns into ‘Inspector Bucket Investigates…’ then I’d be fine with that – Rea is already the runaway star of Dickensian.
Bucket’s exchange with Scrooge is more delicious than any going turkey meat, and shows the delight that the show’s conceit of putting together characters usually separated by book covers can bring. Well it’s fresh and fun now. There’s always the worry that the novelty might wear off by the time we reach episode 10 and the boozy, overfed haze of Christmas goodwill has worn away.
Keeping things more traditional by following the events which eventually form important backstory in Great Expectations, Compeyson plots to seduce and financially ruin young Miss Amelia Havisham.
Fortunately she’s having none of his shit. Right now she’s young, strong-minded, with Tuppence Middleton making her all soft skin and steel spine, and she has no qualms about telling Compeyson to sling his hook. ‘I don’t need a man to solve my problems’, she announces, which at first sounds like a top quality bit of Victorian female empowerment until you realise this is the woman who will one day have all of her problems caused by one man, Compeyson, and retreat into a cobwebbed wedding dress.
Is Dickensian going to be a multi-stranded prequel to half a dozen Dickens novels? So far it technically hasn’t done anything to contradict any of the novels, but if it is, then it’s going to be a very perfunctory 18 episodes.
If you’re going to stick a disparate band of literary favourites together, you really want things to get a bit crazy, rather than just watch Mr. Barbary (who, correct me if I’m wrong, isn’t in any Dickens novel – his daughter is) lie about his finances.
But hey, it’s still early days and Dickensian genuinely has the promise of being a serial drama with enough character and intrigue to hold our attention long after the turkey’s run out. Even if it doesn’t have Dick Swiveller in it.
Aired at 8.30pm on Saturday 26 December 2015 on BBC One.
> Order Dickensian on DVD on Amazon.
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