Bleak Expectations at The Talisman
- 12 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Bleak Expectations written by Mark Evans, Directed by Michael Seeley, Assistant Director Maurice Smith, at the Talisman Theatre and Arts Centre, from Monday 24 August - Saturday 29 August 2026.
Review by Ashley Hayward
This play has been cleverly adapted from the widely acclaimed Radio 4 series which wonderfully parodied the novels of Charles Dickens. Under Michael Seeley’s direction the entire cast and crew serve up a highly entertaining and hilarious production.
The central character is Pip Bin and we follow him and his family and friends through various ridiculous situations as they encounter some quite dastardly characters. The play is narrated by Sir Philip Bin who looks back at his eventful life when he was known simply as ‘Pip’. Graham Buckingham-Underhill achieves the balance of appearing to be a sophisticated and successful Victorian gentleman whilst delivering some very witty, sometimes corny and occasionally topical lines. I found it very reminiscent of Kenneth Horne in the 1960’s radio programme ‘Around the Horne’.
Many of the cast of twelve have to play multiple parts and they display considerable versatility. Gareth Davies, for example, plays all four of the ‘Hardthrasher’ siblings, one of which was a particularly obnoxious judge interacting with three rather stupid jurors (and he succeeded in playing them as well!).
Several of the eccentric characters have some splendidly appropriate names including, ‘Flora Dies-Early’, ‘Gently Benevolent’, ‘Harry Biscuit’, and ‘Skinflint Parsimonious’. The beauty of spoofs of this type is that the larger-than-life characters can legitimately be made even larger!
The fast-paced comedy pokes fun at Victorian values and English eccentricities including our colonial past and female oppression through a great deal of silly, ‘Pythonesque’ humour. The whole cast work extremely hard and show impressive energy and stamina together with impeccable timing.
The production also meets the significant challenge of umpteen different sets, scores of props and some rather rapid costume changes. The sets are remarkably simple and with a few changes of furniture the stage suddenly becomes a home, a church, a school and a court room.
I sometimes have concerns when great works of literature are ‘sent up’ but this is certainly not the case with this production and I’m sure even the most devoted Dickens fan will not be offended by the script which is very much a humorous celebration of his genius as a novelist and as a social critic. The common Dickensian themes of poverty, exploitation, corruption, crime and abuse are still there but are taken to a hilarious extreme.
You also do not need to be a Dickens fan to enjoy what is a is a fast-moving spoof set in the 19th century which contains loads of gags, innuendos and slapstick as well as several pantomime type baddies.
If you’re going to watch the performance you should have great expectations and certainly not bleak ones!
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