Sam Mendes's 'David Copperfield': A review

By Cody M. Quanbeck, guest blogger

I wasn’t initially sure I would listen to the new audio dramatization of David Copperfield from director Sam Mendes and adapter Marty Ross, since I wasn’t a fan of their adaptation of Oliver Twist. What ultimately convinced me to give it a try was the casting of Helena Bonham Carter as Betsey Trotwood. In my experience, Bonham Carter can be a very charismatic performer, but I had a hard time picturing her as the character. That’s the beauty of audio dramas, however. To my mind, Helena Bonham Carter may not look physically intimidating enough to be Betsey Trotwood, but that doesn’t occur to me while I’m listening to her stellar vocal performance. (Sadly, though not surprisingly, this adaptation doesn’t give the character the emotional arc she had in the book, but that’s not the actress’s fault.)

The cast’s other standout is Richard Armitage, who sounds awesomely creepy as Mr. Murdstone. Ncuti Gatwa is also great as the title character. (When that character is an adult, that is. Reece Kenwyne Mpudzi voices him as a child.)

But not everyone is so well cast. Rhiannon Clements sounds too mature to be Dora Spenlow, making the character’s occasional brattishness and general immaturity less tolerable than they should be. To be fair, though, the problem there may lie more with the writing than the acting.

Ah, the writing.