REVIEW: Bleak Expectations, People's Theatre, Newcastle
Dickens send-up in good hands
Dickens is a seasonal staple, especially A Christmas Carol, but here to get us in the mood is an affectionate Dickens send-up, mashing up the titles of two of his great novels.
Bleak Expectations began as a popular comedy series on Radio 4 in 2007.
Creator Mark Evans subsequently turned it into this play which premiered in Newbury in 2023 and then transferred to the West End where its scheduled run was cut short.
That might have rung alarm bells for some but director Steven Wallace, undaunted, has given it a new lease of life.
Actually, it’s less a Dickens spoof than a satire on Victorian values, notably with regard to women and the way they were treated. Misogyny is a word that crops up, I think, more than once.
It’s rather a rum affair, I have to say, in comedy terms a bit like the proverbial curate’s egg – with the definite upside being that you’d have to be a real cold fish not to find many good parts.
I did laugh a lot and much of the credit goes to an excellent cast whose conviction in what they’re serving up gives quirkiness a solid platform.
It begins with Sir Philip Bin (Roger Liddle) reflecting on his eventful life. The red curtain then opens on his comfortably middle class formative years with mam, dad and sisters Pippa (Ellie Carroll) and Poppy (Erin Thwaites).
Whereupon Thomas Kelly takes over as young (ish) Pip Bin, full of cheery optimism and utterly credulous (I was reminded a little of Ardal O’Hanlon’s Dougal in TV’s Father Ted).
It’s an assured and reassuring performance by Kelly who never over-eggs things (even this curate’s egg), playing it straight.
Pip’s dad, as was often the way with fictional Victorian fathers, goes off adventuring (you might call it plundering) and is killed by penguins, suspiciously after showing signs of a nascent conscience.
His mam, as was often the way with fictional Victorian mothers, loses her grip on life (of course, she has no rights) and heads for the linen closet, insane.
Cheerfully accepting the situation, Pip submits to the machinations of his guardian, Mr Gently Benevolent, and is packed off to St Bastard’s School for Boys where the omens are not good.
There even kindly Mr Skinflint Parsimonious (Pip has long since worked out than in a Dickensian spoof names tend to be ironic) can’t help him.
But he finds a kindred spirit in Harry Biscuit, fellow victim of headmaster Hardthrasher whose various siblings will later crop up to make Pip’s life unpleasant, as will Mr Benevolent.
Why does sister Pippa insist on dragging an anvil with her? Why does Pip wed a girl called Flora Dies Early? And why oh why is he immune to the obvious charms, to say nothing of lustful overtures, of Ripely Fecund who writes to him suggestively about otters?
All is revealed on Kaila Moyers’ neat and very satisfying set whose props look like sketches from the kind of book Mr Dickens used to write.
Bleak Expectations runs until Saturday, November 22 (and the run will definitely NOT be cut short). Tickets from the People’s Theatre website.