Always nice to splurge a bit at Christmas isn’t it?
Clearly the BBC, with its unashamed pro-sprout agenda, agrees. No need to ask ‘Please sir, may have I some more?’ as we’re treated to another two helpings of Dickensian.
Given its serial nature, I’m going to lump both eps together in this review but it’s worth pointing out that there’s a change of pen between Episode 3 and Episode 4, as Sarah Phelps seamlessly takes over writing duties from Tony Jordan. You wouldn’t know it if you didn’t pay attention to the credits – there’s no dip in quality.
It’s another strong set of episodes, especially for Stephen Rea’s Inspector Bucket, rising above the ridicule of his fellow Bow Street Runners, and getting on with the business of tramping the street, doing a bit of CSI style investigation with Mr. Venus (Omid Djalili), and interviewing suspects. Proper shoe-leather work, with a vague whiff of Lt. Columbo every time he mentions the unseen ‘Mrs Bucket’, a woman who’s now joined the pantheon of unseen TV wives including Mrs. Mainwaring and Maris Crane.
Episode 3 in particular is a police procedural dressed up in waistcoat and mutton chops. All very tame if you’re used to the intensity of Ripper Street, but properly engaging in this setting, particularly Bucket’s little chat with Fagin, as both men reacquaint themselves the measure of one another.
It’s the simple things, y’see. Like how Bucket uses a tasty pie to interview Nancy and gain her trust, or learns where Bill Sykes was hiding his cosh based on the way he moves as the Peelers burst through his door.
The field of suspects is no narrower though. Still, I’m saying here and now I bet it’s Mr Barbary, with his financial woes, wot dunnit. All the other suspects seem a bit too famous. Or maybe infamous…
When it’s not murder, people are stabbing each other in the back. Frances Barbary, a woman with all the charm of a frosted bedpan (all down to a terrific performance form Alexandra Moen), plots to foil her sister Honoria’s romance with Captain James by not delivering a message for him to high-tail it back to barracks, and in doing so sets in motions a chain of events that, for people familiar with Bleak House, will be familiar backstory territory.
152 YEAR-OLD SPOILERS FOLLOW…
While she appears to be attempting to break her old maid ways by falling for the charms of perambulating carbuncle Sir Leicester Dedlock, it’s Honoria, not Francis, who is doomed to marry Sir Leicester and become the miserable Lady Dedlock. What will be interesting is seeing how that comes about, and particularly how the young and carefree Honoria (Sophie Rundle) will end up as the haughty, haunted shell of her former self.
…152 YEAR-OLD SPOILERS END.
Meanwhile, Compeyson and Arthur Havisham continue to provide depth to the adage ‘thick as thieves’ by being useless at plotting Miss Havisham’s ruin. To the point where Arthur has to borrow 50 quid off payday lender Scrooge. 50 quid so Compeyson can basically throw shade at Miss H at her big party.
Good job there’s 16 episodes left for him to actually become a threat. Right now he’s as threatening as a stick of celery.
And while the bigger story cogs turn, Dickensian tick-tocks along with the kind of entertaining minutiae you’d find in a Dickens novel. Like Mrs Gamp treating Wegg’s one good leg in exchange for a tot of gin, or Mrs Gamp keeping Mr Bumble company in exchange for, err, two tots of gin. Or Caroline Quentin’s Mrs Bumble, as big and bold as a sketch by Phiz, indulging in some bonnet-shaking histrionics in the street.
My favourite: that Jaggers and Tulkinghorn are partners in the practice of Law. It’s a small but fun connection between Great Expectations and Bleak House. Just the kind of Easter egg that makes the show a delight for Dickens nerds.
These are the small, currently inconsequential, pleasantries of world-building, even if Dickens did most of the hard work. But at least the show is capitalising on that work in the right way. Right now Dickensian is proving to be an undemanding but enjoyable prequel to the lives of its famous characters.
Aired at 7.30pm and 8.30pm on Sunday 27 December 2015 on BBC One.
> Order Dickensian on DVD on Amazon.
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