Micawber DVD

Micawber was ITV's big weapon in the Christmas 2001 television ratings war. With its gritty recreation of Dickensian London and David Jason--a name guaranteed to attract viewers regardless of the programme--in the title role it certainly had all the hallmarks of blockbusting television drama. Jason is certainly a fine Micawber, wringing every ounce of pathos and relentless optimism from one of Dickens' most well loved characters. And he is ably abetted by Annabelle Apsion as his put-upon wife who stands by him through thick and thin and who "never will desert him".... The trouble is that if you're going to lift a familiar fictional character out of his original context and give him a whole new life and set of adventures, they really have to match or improve on the original. And Micawber has already been through so much during the course of David Copperfield that stretching him across four episodes and a plot which can only really offer a series of variations on the original theme doesn't give much room for development or dramatic impact. In the writer's corner, Jason's long-term collaborator John Sullivan (creator of Only Fools and Horses) makes a valiant attempt to generate some authentic Dickensian atmosphere. Touches of authentic Victoriana abound in the backstage theatre scenes, a dancing bear, the pawn shop and the highly imaginative flashbacks to the source of Micawber's straightened state. The script tends to combine gritty costume drama with modern comedy in an occasionally uneasy mixture; sometimes we see the ghosts of Del Boy or Pa Larkin rather than Dickens' hapless, pathetic but great-hearted victim of circumstance. But fans of Jason won't complain and there's enough soul in the story to make it compelling. --Piers Ford [show more]

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