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A newspaper reviewer of Dickensian wrote of Dickens' novels being "much loved". Indeed they were and are. But more than that they are enormously admired and respected. Dickens, also, was very much a popular entertainer. And all this with just words, without a flake of snow falling, atmospheric music or costume. His casts of characters are exactly that - individuals instantly memorable - some now immortal - and, typically Dickens, instantly recognisable by their manner of speaking. I am a great great admirer of Dickens' writing and it irks me to hear adaptations where additional (and usually inessential) dialogue is added - it's like driving along a smooth road and going over badly repaired noisy sections. It's not only that it doesn't sound like Dickens, but that it seems either like padding or plain exposition, and Dickens was never just plain. But I thoroughly enjoyed The Muppets' Christmas Carol - the characters were as per the book, quite a bit of the original dialogue used, an excellent Scrooge in Michael Caine and the moral message the same and undimmed - and, apart from being terrifically competent, it was thoroughly entertaining. Paradoxically it showed greater respect to Dickens than some "serious" adaptations. My feeling is that radio adaptations which keep close to the original are the most impressive. The BBC's radio adaptation of Bleak House was the very finest - the scenes between the haughty Lady Deadlock and lawyer Tulkinhorn (Anton Lesser) were if anything even more claustrophobic than in the book. When Dickens did a public reading of Oliver Twist some of the audience fainted at the dreadful scene where Bill Sykes, previously egged on by Fagin, bludgeons, the audience is encouraged to imagine, Nancy. There was a tradition of the Victorian stage monologue and nothing had a more powerful effect on an audience (A tearful audience at Simon Callow's rendering of Dickens "Dr Marigold" one case in point).
From the sublime to the scarcely credible. The problem for me with Dickensian is that it blithely dispensed with Dickens' genius, replacing it with the very humdrum, just sprinkling it with a coating of Dickensian-style flavouring. There is nothing to love, to admire and little to entertain. Dickens can rest in peace - while his name can be stolen, his genius cannot.
score 5/10
trimmerb1234 27 January 2016
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3404112/ |
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21-2-2021 11:16:07