Dickensblog

R.I.P., Maggie Smith

The great Dame Maggie Smith, who passed away yesterday at the age of 89, is being celebrated all over the world for a plethora of wonderful performances and roles. Here at Dickensblog, let us pause to remember her brilliant work as Aunt Betsey Trotwood in the 1999 TV adaptation of David Copperfield. (The clip is taken from an awards show -- the actual scene starts at 0:11.)

To see one of your favorite actors portray one of your favorite characters is always a special treat, and that was what Smith's portrayal of Aunt Betsey was for me. In the clip below, her confrontation with the Murdstones, Smith runs the gamut of emotions in just over a minute. She's affectionate with David, magnificent in her rage at his tormentors, venomous as she finds and pushes Mr. Murdstone's buttons, and then she perfectly underplays her parting shot at Miss Murdstone. For longtime Dickensians and for newbies alike, it's utterly satisfying.

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.

TCM alert

David Copperfield (1935) airs on the channel tomorrow (Thursday) morning at 10 a.m. Eastern, as part of a lineup honoring the 100th birthday of Freddie Bartholomew (young David).

Dickens gets caught up in school book purge

A Tale of Two Cities has gotten some attention recently -- not in a good way. It was one of nearly 3000 books pulled from school libraries in Escambia County, Florida, for review after being challenged for inappropriate content. Also pulled was an edition of David Copperfield "adapted for young readers." As were encyclopedias, dictionaries, Bible story books, and works by Agatha Christie and Emily Brontë, among others. More information is here, here, and here. (Note that different articles give different numbers, but as of January 11, the total appears to be around 2800.)

I try to keep politics off this blog as much as possible, but I suspect we would all agree that if your book review policy considers Charles Dickens a dangerous influence on the youth of America, you probably need to rethink it. 

R.I.P., Tom Wilkinson

The British actor played Pecksniff in the 1994 miniseries version of Martin Chuzzlewit, and was the voice of older David in the 1999 David Copperfield miniseries. He passed away Saturday at the age of 75.

Wilkinson's BBC News obituary includes some of his thoughts on playing a Dickensian role:

"When he portrayed Pecksniff in Martin Chuzzlewit for the BBC in 1994, Wilkinson said: 'I looked at it and I thought, I can't get it any better than that. It came out exactly as I meant it to come out. It won a couple of prizes and I thought, I can act, there's no question.'"

'Collider' ranks Dickens film adaptations

This list of the top 20 features a few films I haven't seen yet, and a couple that I don't really care for, but I'm happy to see the 1958 A Tale of Two Cities, 2019's The Personal History of David Copperfield, and the 1951 Scrooge on there. The listmaker, Jeremy Urquhart, knows his Dickens films, and has put much more thought into this than such lists usually get.

TCM alert

David Copperfield (1935) airs on the channel at 6 a.m. Eastern Friday morning. 

TCM alert

David Copperfield (1935) airs on the channel at 8:15 a.m. Eastern Monday morning.

TCM alert -- a trifecta!

There's a triple-header of Dickens films on the channel early tomorrow morning, as part of a "coming of age" theme. David Copperfield (1935) starts at 2:15 a.m. Eastern, Oliver Twist (1948) at 4:30 a.m., and Great Expectations (1946) at 6:30 a.m.

Sam Mendes's next Audible drama: 'David Copperfield'

(And can we all just thank him for doing something besides Great Expectations?)*

The acclaimed director's next Dickens dramatization for Audible** comes out November 30. It will star Ncuti Gatwa of "Doctor Who" as David, along with Helena Bonham Carter (presumably as Aunt Betsey), Theo James, Jessie Buckley, Richard Armitage (already an award-nominated David Copperfield narrator), Jack Lowden, Toby Jones, Indira Varma, Ralph Ineson, and Reece Kenwyne Mpudzi. Deadline Hollywood has more.

*I imagine he'll get to GE eventually, but honestly, I think we just needed a little break.

**After Oliver Twist, which I still need to listen to (so many audiobooks, so little time). I'll share some thoughts here when I do.