Happy New Year, Dickensian fans. Tip of the topper and a toast raised to you.
Dickens wrote about new year, y’know, in a short story called ‘The Chimes’. ‘A new heart, for a new year, always!’ is the only quote anyone remembers from it, and that’s only because it sounds like a good idea that’ll only be abandoned by January 21st, along with the diet.
Talk about a new heart though – Merriweather Compeyson needs a new brain, as he begins the first day of the year 19-Dickensi-odd by enacting THE STUPIDEST PLAN EVER, in that, this, or any other year.
He plots to win Miss Havisham’s affections (so he can break them, thus ruining her, and then, erm, stuff) by first pretending to be an old cavalry chum of Captain Hawdon, and then – and I cannot believe that this is a sentence I have to type so early in the fresh year – by kidnapping her dog and pretending to save it from danger.
Dognapping at the New Year’s Fair. Shame that wasn’t a deleted scene in her backstory in Great Expectations.
But it’s not enough that he’d pretend to have found Jim the dog and returned him safe, oh no. In a preposterous, pup-clutching scene, he head-butts a brick wall in order to draw blood, and then risks his own life by throwing himself under a horse and carriage, an act that would surely be suicide. All to make him look like a hero.
I laughed. I don’t think I was meant to. But it’s hard to take Dickensian seriously when it indulges in clichés and the odd spot of tone-deaf comedy. We’re only at Episode 5 and already bad habits are starting to set in.
It’s very quickly become a half hour of big voices and broad performances. Even Stephen Rea, who I’ve loudly trumpeted these past few reviews, becomes a prop in a chiropractic comedy, delivering a great speech that is mishandled by the attempt at a chucklesome back-cracking context.
The one moment close to being nuanced is the subject of Arthur’s sexual preference. It’s heavily intimated that the reason he was cut from his father’s will was because he is gay, which is the kind of seamless retconning of Dickens and experimentation with established characters that I’d like to see more of in the show. It’s the only bit of Dickensian that you can really get your teeth into, even though it lasts a collective total of about ten seconds.
Otherwise things are incredibly lightweight and soapy – so much that you wouldn’t be surprised to see a young Dot Cotton walk by, pause to take a drag on a cigarette, and adjust her bonnet with a tut, as Bill Sykes knocks a carnival boxer unconscious in the least interesting side-story ever.
While her father pounds the desk and asks Scrooge for more money, Frances Barabary is in a crinolined version of every high-school romance ever. She fancies Lord Dedlock (which is a lot like fancying an old sofa), but he fancies Honoria (which is a lot like an old sofa fancying you), and it’s all about as interesting as being the bezzie mate forced to hear all the deets.
And in the most Eastender-y moment so far in this Victorian Albert Square analogue, Cockney punching bag Ian Beale Bob Cratchit is arrested for the murder of Marley on the day he’s meant to take his daughter to be wed. What would any respectable soap be without some wedding day drama? Still, it’s a reason to tune in next time.
But there’s a nagging worry about how many more ‘next times’ your patience will stand. I’ve maybe been harsh on it tonight, but that’s only because I’m worried about it (not that anything can be done– watching it, I feel like the reviewing equivalent of a barking dog in a stranger’s arms).
Dickensian is a concept too good to be wasted, but now that it’s a quarter of the way into its run, it feels like it’s tilting between parody and serious drama. By all means, Dickensian, have fun LEGO-ing the characters together, but at least make something of those interactions.
As of now everything is incredibly lightweight, held together by novelty and a love of Dickensian lore, rather than any solid story telling. It can’t go on that way. Something’s got to give. I get the feeling it’ll be the audience before it’s Dickensian.
Aired at 8.30pm on Friday 1 January 2016 on BBC One.
> Order Dickensian on DVD on Amazon.
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