Nothing Bleak But the Title

One of the surest signs of loving something, whether it’s a type of music or genre of literature, is being able to laugh at its eccentricities and conventions and clichés. This is why the best parodies, for example A Mighty Wind and Christopher Guest's other faux-documentaries, tend to be the ones that display an obvious affection for their sources of inspiration. When done right, the end result is a piece of work that goes beyond just being a laugh to being a strong example of the genre itself.

Period drama is ripe for this sort of treatment, but there are surprisingly few examples outside of sketch comedy programs with an occasional Downton Abbey send-up. Aside from Blackadder very few shows have really run with this approach for a full-length series. Among the exceptions, perhaps the best recent example isn't a TV series but rather the product of BBC Radio.

If you've ever wondered what kind of story Charles Dickens would have come up with if he’d written sitcoms instead of serialized novels, the BBC Radio series Bleak Expectations is the show for you. As written by Cambridge Footlights alumnus Mark Evans, the adventures of Sir Philip Bin (who goes by the very Dickensian nickname Pip to his friends, families and enemies) is not just laugh-out-loud funny but also a compelling tale of good versus evil in the finest tradition of Dickens.

Aided by a cast that includes Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Anthony Head as Pip’s evil guardian Mr. Gently Benevolent and veteran actor Geoffrey Whitehead (who recently appeared in the Martin Clunes remake of Reggie Perrin) as numerous members of the sadistic Hardthrasher family, Evans’ scripts have great fun with the Dickensian settings and plots. What really makes Bleak Expectations worth seeking out, though, is that underneath the sly and knowing remarks from the characters and the outrageous twists of fortune is an engaging enjoyable story where you want to find out what happens in the next episode. In this respect, it’s like so many of the Dickens works that inspired it, just a bit funnier.