PICKWICK AND WELLER
Hardly a Christmas comes by without a flurry of productions of the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol. I love Dickens, that wonderful humour and incredible characterisation, but A Christmas Carol, again, and again, and again… well I know how it turns out and I bet there are few who don’t.
But a Dickens for Christmas, surely something different, which is exactly what New Venture Theatre have given us. This is a revised version of an excellent staging by Barry Purchese directed by Rod Lewis and now with music by Michael James.
The Pickwick Papers is a huge episodic work so requires some deft editing to turn it into an easily absorbed few hours of entertainment. Some of us will remember an epic Royal Shakespeare Dickens that ran to nine hours and good as that was, it was a big ask of any audience.
This in comparison is pocket sized but no less engaging. And much of that is down to some rather fine direction and staging. This is almost an immersive event, performed in the round and we the audience in effect acting as attendees at Pickwick’s trial. Telling the tale in full colour requires a large company and this company is well drilled, delivering movement and choreography charmingly in such a small studio setting. I very much like my Dickens dressed in period style and hats of to a costume team for giving us just that.
The addition of music and songs makes this so engaging and Michael James has written some cracking pieces that illuminate character at the same time as progressing the narrative. I wanted more and maybe some underscoring in the dramatic scenes, but without demeaning this work, it certainly has the charm of a Lionel Bart piece with some very memorable tunes.
At the heart of the story we have Pickwick, the gullible and delightful buffoon and Culann Smyth is perfectly pitched in the role. Utterly charming and believable and with a fine voice, it’s a captivating performance. As is Robert Purchese as Sam Weller, the affable fellow that befriends Samuel and becomes his protector. Purchese brings the character vividly to life but gently, more rascal than rogue.
Sarah Donnely’s Mrs Bardell is a bundle of misguided fun, pure Dickens from head to toe. The Members of The Pickwick Club are properly silly and there is a stand out performance from Alastair Lock as Nathaniel Winkle with a face so wonderfully flexible that his every word is illustrated by a facial gesture or tick. Bill Griffiths makes a marvellous Tony Weller, worldly wisdom his real folly and Ben Pritchard’s bumptious judge is a moment of real comedic charm.
The funniest moment of the whole though comes from the two wicked barristers played by Jeremy Crow as Fogg and Gerry Wicks as Dodson, possible the best song in the show and delivered with such humour and daintily executed choreography, magic!
The entire ensemble is excellent but perhaps suffers in the large company numbers from singing to a track rather than having a band and conductor, space in this case being the issue and of course budget.
I hope that this will become a regular Christmas treat at NVT, the production developed and, maybe, shift the whole into the larger bar space making the whole far more immersive, I would certainly return to quaff an ale at the George and Vulture. Your good health!!!
Andrew Kay
14 December
New Venture Theatre
Rating:
