Review: Dickens Unplugged
By Halima Pradley taken from The Courier 22|2|06
Dickens in speedy US style
After the phenomenal success of The Reduced Shakespeare Company squeezing the Bard's entire works into 90 minutes the group's founder, Adam Long, has turned his attention to Charles Dickens.
The result is Dickens Unplugged, one of the funniest shows to hit the stage for some time and performed at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, by the self-confessed "biggest Charles Dickens tribute band in Santa Cruz".
With Dickens thought of as a very English writer, it is perhaps surprising that his metaphorical flag is being flown by an American. But it seems that our trans-Atlantic friends are some of his biggest fans.
Long sees his condensed versions of some of Dickens' best-known tales as a logical product of this three-minute-attention-span Stateside fan base, arising from something deep within the American psyche.
How best to describe such an ambitious project? Well, start by imagining a gallop through Nicolas Nickleby in about 20 minutes; the complex Bleak House reduced to a 30 second country and western song; Great Expectations narrated to Froggy Went a-courting; a chirpy Tale of Two Cities; and A Christmas Carol with an electric guitar-playing Tiny Tim, and you will get the idea.
All this is interspersed with hilarious biographical snippets from Dickens' life, a man who, according to Long, apparently suffered from "anxiety and sorrow" and was obsessed with the bludgeoning scene in Oliver Twist. To give it a 21st century flavour everything is delivered in that inimitable Californian style, with a touch of Marx Brothers meets Crosby Stills and Nash.
Reducing the books to their bare bones was no easy task for Long, as first he had to read them and pick out the most important elements, which means a lot gets left out. Interestingly, when you see this show, the bits that are ommitted make you realise what clever and tangled tales the Dickens stories are, complete with larger-than-life characters and rich language.
The all male cast of Joseph Attenborough, Matthew Hendrickson, Simon Jermond, Jon Robyns and Gabriel Vick play a total of 104 characters between them. This means there is a liberal sprinkling of bearded and distinctly unfeminine women, such as a particularly scary Miss Haversham.
There are some interesting rhymes in the songs, which are delivered in a variety of all-American styles -"gnarly" and "Charlie"; "Uriah" and "perspire"; and "dwarf" and "north" - and some great lines which come at you at a furious rate. There are also plenty of visual gags such as the ludicrous beheading scene in A Tale of Two Cities and the unexpected appearance of Bill Sykes' dog, Bullseye.
But it's all done with the greatest affection, not ridicule - although there is a little fun poking at some of the preposterous coincedences Dickens was so fond of - and Long says that if it inspires someone in the audience to read a Dickens book, he'd feel his job had been well done.
Strangely enough, as I was leaving, I heard a man say he was tackling A Tale of Two Cities and the show had given him renewed enthusiasm for the task.
Dickens Unpluggged is now transferring to London, and judging by its reception at Guilford, the show is going to run and run.