Harrumble! Bleak Expectations, Criterion Theatre, London
Spoof Dickens with voluminous complicated plots, satire, and a narrator writing his memoirs to pay off a tax bill — it can only be comedy Bleak Expectations. The Bin family — Pip (Flip Top Bin) and his sisters Pippa and Poppy have a happy existence with their devoted mother and father. Until their father dies and they become the wards of their evil guardian, Gently Benevolent. Unlike Mr Skinflint Parsimonious — a family friend who is exceedingly generous with gifts. A prototype Amelia Bloomer, Pippa is often faces being married off to a disguised Gently Benevolent and avoiding this fate worse than death. Their mother is a secret accountant, and lost in delusions of being a businesswoman (illegal at the time) or a fanatical ironer.
Parodying Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Little Dorrit, Great Expectations and more, the siblings face constant peril as they seek their fortunes, whilst Pip seeks to thwart Gently Benevolent forever. Along the way they also encounter a whole host of evil doers in the family of Hardthrashers— as an evil public school headmaster and then as a corrupt Judge, who also impersonates a rigged jury and battles his wig! After an Oliver Twist style musical number and Pip asking for less, the beastly headmaster is devoured by his starved pupils and Pip inherits fabulous wealth, surviving turning 18 and his imminent demise by exploding cake. Do Great Expectations await him and his naïve, joyful inventor friend Harry Biscuit?
With bright and sparkling performances and a constant supply of really funny jokes (not to mention throwaway lines), this is a really fun watch. It also plays with stereotypes of the Victorian era — ramping up extreme morality and the characters predicaments. At one point Pip impersonates his sister to avoid her forced marriage to their dastardly guardian. At another he fights the same bounder with sourdough!
Best of all was when the audience perked up and booed Mr Benevolent using a poor kitten (stunt trained and unharmed in real life) as an ink well! Frequently haunted by his deceased father, Pip battles to achieve fame and fortune through inventing the bin and then fighting a claim to his creator patent in court. Which leads to the best bit of the play — the Judge Hardthrasher! Unlike the BBC series, it lacks the dulcet tones of Anthony Head — but it does do a cheesy side line in obvious disguises and accents. There is still death by anvil, and a lot of giggling as Pip is distracted by another woman — often in completely different countries for proprieties sake.
I felt it lacked SWANS at times and seemed to have lost its clergymen (maybe nobody gets Barchester Chronicles any more). But it more than made up for with the suave narrator of Robert Lindsay, the corpsing on stage, the running gag of Robert Lindsay being ‘recognised’ (including by a star struck vicar), the super strict governess, a versatile set (revolving door, levers and switches, a grandfather clock door and mirrors), a stagey velvet reading chair and a Christmas Carol moment where the narrator ‘haunts’ his younger self and encourages him to keep going. Additionally there is also the sweetly kindling romance between Pippa and Harry Biscuit, erstwhile inventor. Alas, not to mention the perky Poppy, who sadly does die (Little Nell style) at one point. (Though she doesn’t get to meet her future vicar and children — she does a great publicity number for faith and shows up the evil Bishop for the fake religion peddler he is! A mash up of The Little Match Girl and Little Nell at this point!)
Stand outs were Ashh Blackwood in a variety of roles including the perpetually giggling love interest — Flora Dies-Early…and Shane David-Joseph who was tremendously funny, stealing every scene he was in, especially as the accident prone father Thomas Bin — even in ghostly apparition form. Rachel Summers was sweet as Poppy and increasingly frustrated as the put-upon Ripely Fecund.
Go and see it for the novelty guest narrator each week!
