The Dickensian

   I finally did  get to see the Dickensian a while back; in fact I own it! But while it's a bit sad it only lasted one season (and they they didn't even let as Americans see it), it could have been a lot better than it was.

   This is perhaps the ultimate Dickens crossover, alternate universe fiction. The assumption here is, as with some of my own fiction, that all of Dickens characters inhabit the same reality, and those characters from separate novels can even interact. This has been hinted at before, as with a "Mr. Brownlow" in the most recent version of Bleak House", and Mr. Micawber and Uriah heap showing up in "The Escape of the Artful Dodger."

    I'm grateful they didn't include characters from authors other than Dickens, so we can assume it's a "Dickensverse." I might assume that Dickens himself does NOT exist here, as there is no cameo by him, as happens in some other pastiches.

   There are a number of clever and amusing storylines which intersect with each other. A major one is that of Inspector Bucket (he's the gent in the center of the pic above) of Bleak House, solving the suspected murder of Jacob Marley. It's a bit of a cliche (though it works well here), that a murder victim was a jerk whom nobody cared for, and may have brought it on himself. But it's still murder, and Bucket has a job to do. His partner Scrooge, Fagin, whose had some dealings with him, and Crachits are all suspects. The inspector at last arrives at a conclusion where he is faced with the dilemma of responding to the demands of his profession, and "bending" the rules slightly in order to take a course of action that seems the most ethical.

    The other major thread is that of Compeyson, the scroundrel who abandoned Miss Havishham in Great Expectations, and goes into detail with his collaboration with Arthur Havishham. Compeyson is still evil here, but he also appears to have some real feelings for Miss Havisham, and it's her relatives who seem even more at fault than he is for what we know eventually happens. Arthur is the trully evil one.This makes the main villain at bit sympathetic; at one point they have him threatened and by Bill Sikes! This works as drama, though I rather doubt that's the way Dickens would have it, as he rendered Compeyson as unrepentedly evil, as I remember it.

    Mr. and Mrs. Bumble are also present, and married before Oliver Twist himself arrives on the scene, late in the series. This is bit of intentional cheating, as it wasn't that way in the book. It doesn't get really bad, however, until right near the end when they knew for sure the show would be cancelled: Oliver asks for more in front of the Bumbles, during a meeting with Grandgrind, Bounderby, and some other characters making cameos from Hard Times. It makes since that the like of Gradgrind and Bumble would be acquainted, but Oliver's shining moment didn't happen like that. Sure, plenty of Twist adaptations deviate too, but not so much as this, and the trick with this sort of mash-up is to have the characters interact without deviating from their canonical storylines. The final scene in which Oliver meets Dodger outside Scrooge's house, presumably when Marley's Ghost shows up, then leads him into the Three Cripples, also deviates so far from the book it's not even funny. The actor playing Dodger looks nothing like him, as he's played by an African or Indian boy. The actor playing Oliver is well chosen, save that he's a little too young; I fist thought this was taking place some years earlier than when Oliver is sent away, but the ending makes clear that's not at the case.

   Or maybe they were just getting sloppy at the end, as I rather suspect. All of the adult actors look their part, and do their jobs well. But what there is of Oliver has been totally butchered.

    And that's about it for the Dickensian, both good and bad.