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I have been a Dickens fan most of my adult life. Discouraged in childhood by a succession of Sunday evening serial adaptations of unremitting bleakness and gloom; I missed out on The World's Greatest Ever Writer until I had grown up a bit.
Ironically; it was another TV adaptation, screened during the 1970's - this time of 'David Copperfield' - that caught my interest and imagination. I enjoyed it so much that when I saw a subscription book-club for his complete works, I signed-up at once.
What a joy. He was the best investment I ever made. The books turned no profit but enriched my life beyond measure. I came to love Dickens and his characters so much and read the books so often that each volume became a treasured friend. I discovered that the 'David Copperfield' serial had been absolutely solid-gold spot-on. It was Dickens from first to last, with his deep and complex plotting, his unbelievable variety and imagination in character creation, and truly authentic and believable dialogue. But above all; there was his light hand of wit and minutely observed study of human nature: wicked, weird, spoilt, tragic and wryly comical. You have to read his books to enjoy the full extent of his comedy; there's no other way. So much of it is contained in the narrative - which, of course, cannot be easily represented on screen, and certainly not in the subtle language of his style.
And as well as all of this, there is the profound thread of social commentary: his enormous intelligence, poking fun at the cynical and snobbish, contemptuous of high-office, compassionate for the poor and suffering of all. Dicken's huge outpouring worked as much as any other force to draw public attention and compel a change in official attitudes to the poor and dispossessed.
I'm sorry about this lengthy preamble, but it needed to be said. Because I tell you truly that this serial (and another - earlier - rendering of 'Bleak House') is not Dickens at all.
Oh-yes; it's BASED upon a Dicken's work. The serial bears his title. The various characters also possess their respective names. But that's it. There is non of the hilarious lampooning political and social commentary. There is non of the splendid mirthful dialogue. But most of all there is no empathy for good or ill with the characters. All of the minutely observed details with which Dickens twits his creations and their oh-so-human vices and foibles, mocking ourselves in the very same instant - because we are also guilty - all of this is absent. Never was a baby so comprehensively jettisoned with the bath-water.
Instead we seem to re-live my childhood. We have a montage of staid, unimaginative, humourless characters steeped in sets as dull and dreary as my infant memory. Dickens has been squeezed out to make way for what is no more than a grim short-running soap-opera. His sly stroke of satire has been replaced by an insensitive corporate stamp.
Whoever created this travesty must have worked upon the characterisation and scripting of 'Eastenders'. It's that bad. They can't possibly have read the book. Or if they have then they possess not a particle of humour. Or perhaps this is yet another example of the politically-correct BBC scourging our great national heritage once more, and dumming it down to their own miserable, resentful left-wing agenda. Dickens towers so mightily above anything that they can conceive - despite billions of pounds of tax-payers' money - that they pull down the edifice so that it no longer confronts and mocks them with their own pygmy-like creativity. The BBC is precisely the sort of arrogant, self-serving, tower of weakness that would have excited Dicken's ire. If you doubt me, read the book. Read his whole chapter about the 'Circumlocution Office' (Whitehall). And discover how 'the whole science of government' is defined by one abiding principle: 'HOW NOT TO DO IT'. Nothing has changed unto this day.
The viewer has been cheated. It's as simple as that. I earnestly entreat anyone who is not familiar with 'The Master' to read his books and find out why Dickens will live on, long after the BBC and its squalid little munchkins have passed into history.
score 4/10
screenman 27 November 2008
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1981670/ |
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9-10-2020 07:49:09