Radio 4's Dickens spoof hits the West End

Cry ‘harrumble!’ for this joyously silly Dickensian romp transferring to the West End. The stage spin-off from the Radio 4 comedy is a ridiculous pantomime for grown-ups – and the barely grown-up – sending up all that is preposterous about Victorian-era melodramas.

A witty script, gleefully performed, mixes direct parodies of Charles Dickens’ work  with a mockery of the mores of the time. Emotions are repressed, women are suppressed and English privilege celebrated as the natural order of things. London’s abject poverty that the author so vividly captured is understandably glossed over, as ‘keep it light’ is definitely the watchword.

The buttoned-down era, and Dickens’ distinctive writing style, are very easy to parody, and creator Mark Evans gets it bang on. He leans into every cartoonish exaggeration, from the earnest young lead to the  baddie so evil he uses a kitten as an inkwell. And of course there’s the literal character names, such as the cane-loving headmaster Mr Whackwell Hardthrasher, the fragile Flora Dies-Early, or the comely Miss Ripely Fecund.

Evans tells the story of plucky young Pip Bin, a child of a well-to-do family until his father is killed by penguins while exploiting far-off lands on behalf of the Empire. His mother goes mad and his evil guardian Gently Benevolent (some nominative determinism is ironic) abducts his sister and despatches our hero to the brutal St Bastard’s boarding school, from which there seems to be no escape.

And that’s just the start of a sprawling, multi-tentacled tale, entirely in keeping with Dickens’ expansive style. The story definitely runs out of steam midway through the first half and it starts feeling like a drag, but the momentum is revitalised after the interval, once our hero flees to London where he invents the device that will be key to his own fortune – the bin – while reviving the battle against his nemesis. Between that and the short life expectancy of the 19th Century, by the end there are more corpses than Macbeth

The comedy’s often Pythonesque, with surreal devices such as ‘the spoon of celibacy’ and an omnipresent anvil, while silly and one-liners are in abundant supply, supporting the broad slapstick and knowing anachronisms. Evans loves an alliteration and exquisitely descriptive turns of phrase, such as describing the atmosphere among the grieving Bin family as if ‘someone poured a a teapot full of sadness and everyone forgot to say when’.

Under the direction of Caroline Leslie, the production is rarely subtle, but that’s entirely the point – you have to buy into the mugging performances and preposterous script as wholeheartedly as this spirited cast do.

Dom Hodson as Pip and J.J Henry Harry Biscuit as his bestie  are  the epitome of wide-eyed, wildly misplaced what-ho! optimism as they face down John ​Hopkins’s moustache-twirling villain. Meanwhile, Marc Pickering is great fun as the entire Hardthrasher family. It’s probably Dickens’ fault that the female characters are more thinly drawn than even these stereotypes.

A series of guests narrate the show as an older Pip, full of braggadocio for his myriad achievements (‘I once made Belgium cry’). Sally Phillips is suitably game, and especially shines in the opening monologue of act two, which best showcases her her command of saying nothing but making it hilarious.

Parodying England’s second-favourite literary figure is likely to have a commercial appeal, not least among the capital’s tourists. And Bleak Expectations has tapped into to spirit of revues past. It certainly sits nicely into the Criterion Theatre which previosly hosted the fellow literary parody Pride & Prejudice (*Sort Of), as well as the similarly overwrought Play That Goes Wrong.

True, the show could probably lose 20 minutes or so (in the words of one poor pupil facing yet another disgusting school meal ‘Please sir, could I have some less?’), but it’s a fun, vivacious and uncomplicated romp that would even make Miss Haversham smile.

• Bleak Expectations runs at the Criterion Theatre until September 3. Tickets are available here.

The forthcoming guest stars are:
23-28 May: Robert Lindsay
30 May - 4 June: Sue Perkins
6-11 June: Julian Clary
13-18 June: Adjoa Andoh
20-25 June: Craig Ferguson
27 June - 2 July: Lee Mack
4-9 July: Stephen Mangan
11-16 July: Jo Brand
18-23 July: Tom Allen
25-30 July: Jack Dee
1-6 August: Alexander Armstrong
8-13 August: Stephen Fry
15-20 August: Ben Miller
29 August - 3 September: Nish Kumar

Review date: 21 May 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett