It would it be fair to say that most of us wouldn’t immediately associate Charles Dickens with comedy. His stories famously capture the gravitas and hardship of many different classes of people at the time he lived. Yet here we are reminded that his first novel, published first in weekly segments, was far funnier than we are used to; yet still has that acute observation of people living at the time. The characters here are archetypes and many are larger than life, and although the performers are aware of that, their portrayals are grounded in reality and authenticity.
This is an utterly charming production, gratifyingly reminding us of the gold standard of musicals: that the scenes swell with emotion until speaking does not suffice, and only singing will do. The words and music are super and the actors perform each one as their character. It’s such a breath of fresh air to feel a moment turn into a song, rather than the usual ‘take places please, my big song is coming up’ in other shows. There are also some lovely voices on show: Tom Slater-Hyndman owns the stage as Alfred Jingle confidently holding court with his take on life; his performance as a whole is compelling and a joy to watch. Jeremy Crow and Gerry Wicks are a hoot as the swindler solicitors who in other less experienced hands might just be loathsome – here they are warm and funny as well, especially in their song and little dance routine.
It’s good to see despite being archetypes the actors portray the characters with depth and layers. Culann Smyth and Robert Purchese in the titular roles respectively hold this standard beautifully. Pickwick who could otherwise be a buffoon is here someone who has led an extremely sheltered and naive life; whilst the lower class Weller is streetwise and the opposite: although he still sometimes makes the wrong decisions. In Dickens’ world where characters are often played as black or white, it’s so good to see more nuance, realness, and grey areas. Also unusual is a feisty woman who turns out to be ‘good’ and retains her femininity and even lives to tell the tale; a lovely performance from Laura Scobie as Mary, including a justifiably angry solo song. Another lovely performance is from Alistair Lock as Pickwick’s verbose friend Nathaniel Winkle, whose rising tension and discomfort in the court scene is laugh out loud funny.
People say your first novel is autobiographical, and it’s difficult not to see the parallels between Pickwick in Debtors’ Prison and Dickens own life. Watching the duet from Pickwick and Weller, in a scene where they are unaware of each other: Pickwick drawing Weller into his prison world where Weller orbits from loyalty, it’s hard not to see Dickens himself, his relationship with his father, and how it affected his whole life’; this makes the moment so much more poignant.
There is an immersive feel to this production, presented in the round, as the audience are dotted around at various seating placements with the playing areas jutting into them. This makes it all the more real and immediate, as does being able to see the detail in all the props including dripped candle wax on the bottles holding candles. The letters are on proper period paper and the contents are what the actors describe, which isn’t always the case: this level of detail is joyous.
This is such a charming production with a fully committed cast in every moment. Seen on opening night there are things that could be tightened up, such as the time taken to set up some scenes rather than setting them as part of the action to keep the flow going, which happened in other scenes and worked well. There also seemed to be some very large pauses between scenes, which no doubt will get tighter as the run progresses, otherwise it unfortunately leads to a loss of momentum as well as energy. The levels of musical accompaniment also needs reducing slightly in some songs in order to hear the wonderful lyrics as some were lost, despite the best projected volume from the actors. However, all in all, this is a lovely warm production which they can all be very proud of creating, leaving us with a sense of joy and hope, which is often well needed at this time of year.
New Venture Theatre, 12 December 2025
Pickwick and Weller runs until 20 December 2025
Photos credit: Strat Mastoris
