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"I have been blowing off a little indignant steam," wrote Dickens about
Little Dorrit. The plot concerns the revelation of a mysterious legacy that
links the Clennam family, whose son Arthur has returned from abroad to rectify a
family wrong, with the Dorrits, whose father is in Marshalsea prison for debt
and whose daughter Amy is a seamstress at the Clennam household. However,
Dickens's indignation mainly rouses itself in his creation of a materialistic
metropolis, crawling with slum landlords, idle bureaucrats and shady
speculators, all in thrall to the tycoon Merdle, whose catastrophic financial
downfall prophetically resembles recent global events.
Justifiably nominated for numerous awards for its costume design (Barbara
Kidd) and for a production design (by James Marifield) that had to simulate
settings of Marseille and Venice as well as London, this BBC/NOVA WGBH Boston
co-production is among the most lavish of all Dickens' adaptations for
television. It is also one of the most brilliant. Andrew Davies' script, which
followed his much-lauded Bleak House (2005), does a masterly job in pulling the
sprawling narrative together, while recognising that it is the audacious
concept and the rich characterisation that count most.
The overriding theme is imprisonment, sometimes literal (the Marshalsea),
sometimes symbolic (the Circumlocution Office, which is binding the country in
red tape), and sometimes both physical and spiritual (as in the case of the
paralysed Mrs Clennam, played with fearsome righteousness by Judy Parfitt). Even
the seemingly superfluous character of the murderer Rigaud (a flamboyantly
malevolent Andy Serkis) has his place in the symbolic design, being a reminder
of what prisons are for and a distorted, demonic version of Dorrit in his
insistence that he too is a gentleman. Above all, the past is a prison from
which no one can escape.
With over two hundred speaking roles impeccably spoken, it seems unfair to
single out individual performances. Still, it is doubtful whether Tom Courtenay
has done anything finer than his William Dorrit, a proud but pathetic patriarch
who, even when showered with riches and welcomed into high society, carries the
taint of the Marshalsea with him and whose mind eventually gives way under the
pressure. And goodness of heart has rarely been projected more beautifully than
by Claire Foy's Little Amy Dorrit. Here is a production that does full justice
to what one might call Dickens' artistry: indeed, genius would not be too
strong a word for it.
Neil Sinyard
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1: Looking for employment (3:57)
