Dickens magic and B.B.C. skill

Press, 16 January 1979, Page 11

Dickens magic and B.B.C. skill

By

DERRICK MANSBRIDGE

One of the easiest things to do in this world is to castigate television. After ail, much of the socalled entertainment is unadulterated rubbish. But there are blessed times

when television comes alive and one of these occasions is its adaptations of Charles Dickens. Dickens is not everyone’s idea of a simple fireside read. Once, crowds used to wait on the docks of New York for the ves-

sel to come in with the next episode of “Great Expectations," so great was the interest in Dickens's ability to tell a story and mould a character. It is said that when the crowd heard that Little Nell had died, men and women wept on each other’s shoulders. Since then Dickens has to an alarming degree cated — alarming because his works are still vivid and intense to those who can appreciate him. But for those who will not try to read Dickens today, television is a very convincing second best. "Our Mutual Friend.” his last completed novel, bgan on TVI on Sunday, and if the roomful which

watched the first two parts on our set was anything to judge by, television brought a “new" Dickens to them. Not only had none read the book; some had not even heard of it.

Probably no-one is better equipped than the 8.8. C. to adapt Dickens to television — and probably none but the British could produce his stories. They call for character acting of the highest degree and it would seem

there isalways someone on the Biritsh stage who fits to a T the most outrageous character Dickens could pen. Brian Wilde, the malleable “loose screw” from "Porridge,” popped up as the somewhat sinister mortuary attendant; Alfie Bass, better known as Bootsie from “Bootsie and Snudge,” was immaculately cast as the “literary gentleman with the W'ooden leg”; Leo McKern was made for the part of Noddie Boffin, as he has been for many other larger-than-life Dickens characters. The photography in the first two parts on Sunday was truly magnificent. Often it was so com-

pelling, so ideally suitable to the situation, however grotesque, that it was possible to be lost in admiration and to fall behind the story.

"Our Mutual Friend” is not one of Dickens’s most compelling stories. Much of it is contrived and superficial. But television glosses over these faults by its ability to highlight that which is genuine talent. And it was not in Dickens’s make-up to write a total failure.

Part of my admiration for the 8.8. C. and its Dickens adaptations lies in the highly professional manner it brings to the work. And that same professionalism came through in another programme on Sunday, “Whittaker’s Fifth” — the fifth tour of New Zealand by the singer, Roger Whittaker. Whittaker leaves some people cold. They are not impressed by the sheer ease of his performance. As many, though, rave over him. But whether one can take or leave Whittaker, none can doubt the professionalism of the man.