EssenceStory Well Deserved Praise

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

studioAT Touted as one of the BBC's gifts to us as viewers over the Christmas 2015 period this ended up being a bit of an expensive flop for them, being axed after one series.It had a lot of potential, but people just didn't get into it. The scheduling didn't help it take on a sort of soap like quality, but the basic fact was people may know the main Dickens characters, but some of the ones that popped up were just too obscure for the average viewer.I applaud the BBC for trying something different, goodness knows they don't do it often, but they really didn't help themselves by moving this show around the schedules so much.

Prismark10 Tony Jordan a long time writer for Eastenders created this soap opera type serial based on various Dickens novels and mixes various characters.There were main story threads involving the killing of Jacob Marley that is investigated by Inspector Bucket. Then there is the pending marriage of Miss Havisham.The series started in Christmas 2015 in a 30 minute format usually ending with a cliffhanger very much in the mould of the weekly editions of the Dickens stories. The series went on until late February 2016 and being irregularly scheduled which meant hard work to follow it around and find out when it was shown.The final episode tied up some story strands leaving the fate of the characters to be carried on in their respective novels. For example we last see Scrooge being bothered by ghostly sounds and images.However the show did not work for me, familiar characters but never really developed my interest. We have enough soap operas on television without having a Dickens based one and the final double episode was patchy in places.Maybe a shorter, sharper serial would have worked better.

l_rawjalaurence Produced by Tony Jordan (who also wrote seven of the twenty episodes), formerly of EASTENDERS, DICKENSIAN could be superficially described as a nineteenth century transposition of the BBC's popular soap opera. The action takes place in an unspecified London street teeming with people - beggars, hawkers, sellers, pedestrians - and lined with shops. A pub ("The Three Cripples") provides a focus for much of the action just like the Queen Vic in the soap. The protagonists originate from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds and interact with one another on cold winter days, where the snow mostly lies thick on the ground or falls lightly. The only thing missing from DICKENSIAN that would give it the authentic EASTENDERS touch is the familiar line of dialogue where one character wants to "have a li'le talk (tawk)" with another.Frivolity apart, DICKENSIAN is a highly entertaining mélange of various plots, all moving outwards from the central incident taking place in episode one - the murder of Jacob Marley (Peter Firth). Inspector Bucket (Stephen Rea) of "the Detective" (Scotland Yard had not yet been created) pursues the case with relentless persistence, despite occasional misfortunes (such as putting his back out). With his Sarff Lundun accent and quiet manners, he has a knack of making people talk without resorting to violence.In a subplot, Mr. Barbary (Adrian Rawlins) tries to maintain a facade of gentility despite being in considerable hock to Marley and Scrooge (Ned Dennehy). He has two daughters - one a perpetual spinster (Alexandra Moon), the other a flighty spendthrift (Sophie Rundle) in love with a penniless soldier (Ben Starr).Miss Havisham (Tuppence Middleton) has inherited her father's fortune as well as control of the family brewery, leaving her brother Arthur (Joseph Quinn) with a small inheritance. Resentful of her power - which he believes is unjust - he collaborates with Meriwether Compeyson (Tom Weston-Jones) to try and recover it. Compeyson is a lip-smackingly convincing villain, able to turn on the charm where necessary as well as commit unspeakably evil deeds (such as drowning Miss Havisham's dog).A galaxy of lesser characters revolve round these plots: Mrs. Gamp (Pauline Collins) sets her amorous sights on Silas Wegg (Christopher Fairbank); Mrs. Bumble (Caroline Quentin) tries to fulfill her social ambitions despite her husband's (Richard Ridings's) physical and mental inertia; and Fagin (Anton Lesser) tries every trick in the book to keep Bill Sikes (Mark Stanley) under control. Oh, and we must not forget the Cratchit family trying to continue an edenic existence under the most trying of circumstances.Each one of the twenty half-hour episodes intertwines these plots, creating a world of perpetual motion wherein something always seems to be going on. It is a tribute to Jordan's production that he has managed to portray mid-nineteenth century London as a teeming city riddled with corruption, yet with some elements of kindness thrown in.Purists might object to the series on the grounds that it is not "faithful" to Dickens's novels in the sense of reproducing the plots. Rather it could be described as a mash-up of all the most memorable characters from a variety of texts (GREAT EXPECTATIONS, OLIVER TWIST, PICKWICK PAPERS, and so on). Yet the series is very Dickensian in outlook: many of the novels were originally written in serial form, and Dickens's readers used to eagerly await the next installment to find out what happened to their favorite characters. This is precisely the feeling we get from DICKENSIAN.

trimmerb1234 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.