After suffering some unsteady Christmas scheduling, Dickensian is settling down for a regular Wednesday/Thursday night slot. God bless us, everyone!
Because even at a time when an audience can record, download, binge, and then awkwardly chill while the dog’s not watching, there’s no better way to kill a show – especially one that acts like a soap and so should be scheduled with the same regularity – than to let it ricochet around your TV guide like a repeat episode of Michael Portillo’s Railway Journeys.
After last week’s EastEnders-y cliffhanger, Bob Cratchit’s now in custody and being interviewed, giving Robert Wilfort a chance to show that his character is more than cheery forelock tugging. Cratchit’s allowed out for his daughter’s wedding and a reception that’s one of those good old Dickensian knees-up like you see in Hablot Knight Browne’s illustrations. You know the sort; flagons and fiddles and people doing that jig they’re always doing.
Also allowed out in Episode 6: Compeyson’s arse, as he provocatively exposes himself to the sexually-repressed Arthur and our prying eyes. No wonder Miss Havisham’s keen to see him again.
It’s a prurient pre-watershed moment that is blatantly trying to pre-empt Season 2 of Poldark in the category of ‘Historical Fiction’s Most Hench, 2016’. And hey, it works. What with this, and Rossy P, and Lady W in 2015, Auntie Beeb has reacquired a taste for the ‘gertcha-bummout!’ titillations of candlelit flesh.
70-odd words about Tom Weston-Jones’ bottom is far too much verbal ogling, especially when Weston-Jones continues to make good work of teetering a pretty one-note character on the right side of human and interesting. Even by Dickens’ caricatured standards, Compeyson is not made to be particularly subtle here, but he is enjoyably handsome malicious.
There’s a lot to enjoy this week’s two episodes. None more so than Scrooge’s reference to Marley’s Ghost; a joke that hits exactly the spot that the whole show aims for but doesn’t always hit (a wink somewhere between the referential and the playful).
But there’s also nice little touches like Mrs Biggetywitch’s bitching and sniping about the wedding, Mrs Gamp scamming her way to more free gin, the Bumbles and their dysfunctional, barely functional marriage, Bill and Nancy having a picnic on a bench, and Tiny Tim getting to be adorable. Nothing huge, not just yet anyway, just ‘in between the pages’ moments to show this a world of greater depth than its impressive set.
Speaking of an impressive set, back to Compeyson who, now that he has miss Havisham’s interest, plays hard to get. ‘Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen, try not to die of consumption or gangrene’, as the old Victorian misogynist’s saying goes. He gets to work on her confidant, Matthew Pocket, first getting him drunk, and then trying to kill him during an inebriated dare involving leaping between rooftops. When he saves Pocket’s life (after first sabotaging a roofing stone), he’s suddenly in Pocket’s good books.
Honestly, the bare-arsed cheek of the man.
Although let’s just remind ourselves that this is the second time in a week that Compeyson has risked his life with the aim of jilting a woman. If he put this much effort into actual work he’d be wealthier than Sir Leicester Dedlock, who’s currently panting after Honoria like a St. Bernard, and if Frances gets her way, will be pawing at her like one soon (she will, and he will).
With Cratchit now on a short lead but by no means the only suspect, Bucket investigates Wegg – he of the one good leg – for stealing cognac, believing it to be a lead that may connect Wegg with the murder of Marley. Could Wegg have killed Marley, perhaps by removing his wooden stump and using it as a cudgel (again)?
God, I hope so, as that would make a terrific flashback come Episode 20. Maybe that old sop Mrs Gamp drunkenly cleaned the blood off it while getting rid of the woodworm?
Right now it could be anything, but ideally the ‘whodunnit?’ at the heart of Dickensian is going to be something a lot more craftily plotted. Else this will be a Broadchurch with a bonnet on top.
That’s not to say it won’t have been worth it if that’s the case – not by any means – but for a series with a premise that is starting to pay off, you expect a solution to a murder that will do the same. Else it might end on a real bum note. And I don’t mean Compeyson style.
Aired at 8pm on Wednesday 6 January 2016 and at 8pm on Thursday 7 January 2016 on BBC One.
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