In the past ten to fifteen years or so, it seems that Britain has overrun America with all kinds of costume dramas, from Jane Austen movies to Downton Abbey. All the multi-part miniseries of Dickens novels can be particularly overwhelming, but if you want to dive into the world of Andrew Davies‘ literary adaptations after the sublime Pride and Prejudice, there is no better place to start than with the 2005 Bleak House.
My friends and I used to get together for tea sandwiches and scones to watch various British miniseries, such as Pride and Prejudice and Brideshead Revisited, but it was Bleak House that gave us our name for these gatherings: “Lobster and Lettuce,” after some of the random images that floated by in the credit sequence for this miniseries. There is a dinner of lobster and lettuce in the book, you see. My friends found this detail from the book, as reflected in the opening credits, to be delightfully absurd — just like the plot of this story.
I think there may be a few barriers to people wanting to try this series. Except for the first part, which is an hour, the rest are thirty minutes, but that is still a lot of television. Also, why would anyone want to watch something called Bleak House, anyway? Surely, that’s less fun than Oliver Twist, or something, right? Even though Dickens is known for his comic characters with funny names (Bleak House has such fun names as “Turveydrop” and “Tulkinghorn”), his novels are often bleak depictions of industrial Victorian London. Therefore, I think that, going in, one should have an interest in British literature, British history, or both, ideally.
But for those who have that interest, or who just like costume dramas — oh, this miniseries is a treat! The story sprawls a bit, but focuses on how a never-ending law case in the Court of Chancery, Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, affects the characters in the story. The story thus acts as Dickens’ indictment of the unwieldy British legal system as the case destroys characters’ hopes for the future, as well as their lives. Much of the story is told from the point of view of Esther Sommerson (Anna Maxwell Martin), who, to be honest, is one of Dickens’ wishy-washy heroines, though the actress does the best she can with the material.
Aside from Esther, the plot is full of all kinds of great stuff. It is far less boring than you would expect a story about the ills of the legal system to be. I can’t possibly recap it all, but the story includes secret identities, children out of wedlock, disfiguring smallpox, estranged lovers, a secret marriage, a shipwreck survivor, framing someone for murder, tuberculosis, a crazy bird lady and … something so crazy and outlandish that I am going to put it in the next paragraph. If you want to be really surprised by something completely out there when you watch the series, then skip the next paragraph.
This next bit is probably crazy enough to put people off, but I love it for its sheer outlandishness. There is a spontaneous human combustion. Yes, you read that right: spontaneous combustion. AND IT’S AWESOME! People have criticized Dickens for putting this in, since it’s insane (though he defends his belief in in the phenomenon in a footnote), but I am so glad Davies kept it in. Because a person catching fire for no real reason except that he’s drinking elevates the miniseries from awesome to Crazy Awesome. It also provides plot complications, but in a more fun way than if the character in question had just knocked a candle over, burning important documents.
Aside from the awesomeness stated above, the miniseries is also notable for including a plethora of great British actors, some even before they were famous. The most notable is Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock, but there are many others. Charles Dance showed that he could play evil long before he played Tywin Lannister. Burn Gorman of Torchwood plays a very different character here, showing what a skilled character actor he is. Richard Griffiths of Harry Potter fame shows up in a small role, as does Catherine Tate, whom Americans now know from Doctor Who. Also, Carey Mulligan plays a major character, Ada Clare, before she was famous! Ada, like Esther, could come off as pretty lame, but Mulligan does an excellent job of making her sympathetic.
Davies has made a career of doing adaptations of literature, and the BBC has done a lot of Dickens recently. This was Davies’ first Dickensian miniseries (the second was the also quite good Little Dorrit, which makes a fine second stop if you like this one), but he had done stuff like Pride and Prejudice and Middlemarch from the early 90s on. I think this is the best of the Dickens miniseries the BBC has aired, though. The acting is great, the story is gripping, and the adaptation of the book is clear and economical, despite the eight-hour length. Despite the name, there is a thread of hope running through it, and it is less “bleak” than the recent Great Expectations adaptation (also starring Anderson) or the recent Mystery of Edwin Drood, both part of BBC’s Year of Dickens in honor of the 200th anniversary of the author’s birth this year.
If you like costume dramas, and especially if you liked Davies’ Pride and Prejudice or the current stateside obsession Downton Abbey, check out Bleak House. Preferbly with tea, scones, and a few friends.
Clacked by Christina Furtado 
on Jul 18, 2012 @ 10:00 EST5EDT
