Martin Chuzzlewit

Although this BBC production of "Martin Chuzzlewit" from 1994 is not widely known, it is definitely a very good one. The characters are true to Dickens' novel, some of them being rather multi-layered, such as the bitter and twisted Jonas Chuzzlewit, very well portrayed by Keith Allen, or the desperate young Martin Chuzzlewit (Ben Walden), who from his very first scene casts a spell with his eyes and voice.

For those BBC drama collectors who consider buying the video: This is not as light as the fine Jane Austen film versions, but rather dark and gloomy. In my view this contributes to the film's attraction, and I can recommend "Martin Chuzzlewit" without hesitation.

A piece of advice concerning the videotape: Watch it as soon as you purchased it because there are some tapes on which visual noise appears every now and then. You might perhaps have to exchange it.

Martin Chuzzlewit as written by Charles Dickens becomes another of his young men who rise to success stories with a combination of their own perseverance and an unseen hand of fate which seems to be in control of destiny. Others like this are the more well known David Copperfield and Pip from Great Expectations.

There are two Martin Chuzzlewits, the first is the young Dickensian hero who is played by Ben Walden and there is grandfather Martin Chuzzlewit who is Paul Scofield who also plays his own brother Anthony Chuzzlewit.

The old Martin is one rich dude who is a doddering and miserly sort of man worried as to who might deserve the riches he's accumulated in life. Scofield has a flock of relatives who are hanging on every word and every breath hoping to find favor with the old guy. For strangely enough he's cut off young Walden and now the rest of them just think his fortune is up for grabs with his dying breath.

The worst of the Chuzzlewit relatives is a cousin named Seth Pecksniff who is an ostentatiously pious and inwardly scheming individual. He worms his way into Scofield's confidence and tries to undermine everyone else so that he and his daughters may profit. He's not above using his daughters for that end either though the daughters played by Julia Sawalha and Emma Chambers. Pecksniff is one of Dickens's most enduring if villainous characters and here he's played with full unctuousness going on all cylinders by Tom Wilkinson.

One of the daughters in fact at Wilkinson's urging marries an equally villainous cousin Jonas Chuzzlewit played by Keith Allen to further the Pecksniff fortunes. He also takes in 'students' to 'learn' architecture and he's got a lovely racket there in passing off promising student's drawings as his own work and living off the money they pay him to allegedly learn. He deals young Walden dirty that way, but most catch on to him including Walden with exception of good hearted Tom Pinch played by Philip Allen. Even he gets wise at one point.

Martin Chuzzlewit was written after Dickens had returned from an American tour and part of the novel has young Martin and a friend going to America to seek a fortune of his own. Dickens was not happy with what he saw in America and the Americans you see here are a merciless bunch of greedy film flam businessmen. That part of the novel got a short shrift in this production.

Considering how Dickens portrayed some of his own countrymen I can't really fault him for writing what he saw in the USA of the 1840s. Just the Chuzzlewit family or most of them are enough to make you gag.

This is a fine BBC productions impeccably cast and giving us a good picture of the United Kingdom of the early Victorian years. Best in the cast is Tom Wilkinson as Pecksniff. The word itself became a noun in the English language for hypocrite just mccarthyism became a synonym for slanderous accusation without proof.

When one of your characters becomes a noun, that's the greatest success you can have.

I was absolutely stunned by this BBC-miniseries: it's almost perfect in every way. It succeeded in producing the exact atmosphere of Dickens' novel as I recall it, with all the fine irony, the dark and the good sides of human nature, the description of the beautiful countryside as well as the ugly corners of the big city, the sumptuous costumes, I could go on and on, everything seemed to be in perfect place and exactly right.

Due credit should go to the director and of course to the writer, who did a great job in translating some 700 pages of Charles Dickens into a manageable script. The fact that the whole American section of the novel is left out, didn't bother me that much. In the book it's almost a novel within a novel, and since with the adaptation of novels of this scale one always has to make some concessions, it seemed a sensible choice to comprise the American adventure to one or two short scenes.

As to the actors, they really deserve the highest credit, it's unbelievable how a whole cast can be of such high standards. Tom Wilkinson as the hypocritical, greedy en pompous Pecksniff is absolutely great; equally good and entertaining is Pete Postlethwaite, and I also should mention Elizabeth Spriggs as the scruffy, boozing and ad-libbing Mrs. Gamp, the "nurse" who you wouldn't trust with your worst enemy let alone with a patient! Julia Sawalha (Absolutely Fabulous) and Emma Chambers (Notting Hill) as the Pecksniff-offspring are not only hilarious, but also develop their part in a very convincing and in the end touching way. On the other, more dark side of the spectrum of Dickens-characters, Keith Allen as the ominous Jonas Chuzzlewit is blood-chilling in his portrayal of a cruel and relentless son and husband. And so I could go on, until even such small parts as the spicy young Bailey (Paul Francis - how DO they get such a young kid to play so natural and easy?!).

If any, to me there's only one minor flaw in this production: the role of young Martin Chuzzlewit by Ben Walden. I don't know what to make of it. Here's a young actor with a handsome yet rather uncommon face, an awkward way of acting, and a curious, almost mumbling diction! He seemed a strange choice to play one of the major protagonists in the story. But another reviewer on this site mentioned of him, that he "casts a spell with his eyes and voice", so maybe that's another way of looking at him.

I give this production a heartfelt 10 out of 10.

This was a novel about dishonesty. Dishonesty ranging from mild deception to robbery and murder most foul. And it is the dishonest who are the most memorable characters in the book - and in this TV adaptation. The tone too, ranges from comic to the most sombre shade. At its most comic is Sairey Gamp, grubby drunken "nurse" to the sick and helpless. Her dishonesty is as much self deception: the constant good opinion of herself held by the mysterious never to be seen "Mrs Harris" which Sairey Gamp endlessly quotes to the increasing irritation of her partner in nursing (and in drink) which leads to an explosive comic confrontation between all - three? Remarkable actor Pete Postlethwaite performs a remarkable transformation from down and out Tigg Montague to grandest of swindlers Montague Tigg, founder of The Anglo-Bengalee Assurance Company whose prospectus promises a paid up capital of "a two and as many oughts as the printer can get in the line". Dishonesty of another kind is represented by one of Dickens greatest creations: the odious sanctimonious hypocritical serial-forgiver and would be seducer Pecksniff (excellently played by Tom Wilkinson). Finally dishonesty of the blackest kind is represented by Jonas Chuzzlewit, murderer for money -with poison and bludgeon. When justice catches up with Jonas, actor Keith Allen vividly portrays a man suddenly in the shadow of the noose. In comparison the good, the prudent and the merely imprudent (Tom Pinch, Old Martin Chuzzlewit, and young Martin) are in comparison and perhaps inevitably - as in the book - a little colourless.) The silly recklessness of Mercy Pecksniff and the sour realism of her sister are particularly well brought out. Finally the dialogue - its unobtrusiveness as it goes between Dickens' original and David Lodge's own is exemplary. So too is the distinctive music - often with a loping rhythm suggestive of careful and wary footsteps.

A really excellent and entertaining production with a fine cast giving full measure to the most memorable characters and scenes. It is difficult to imagine it being bettered.

In 1842 Charles Dickens was at a critical point in his career. His attempt at a series of stories told by different characters to each other, "Master Humphrey's Clock", was not a success, although it produced a popular novel ("The Old Curiosity Shop"), and a first attempt at a historical novel ("Barnaby Rudge"). He decided to take a trip to the United States.

The results was bad. He found Americans thievish for not giving him copy-write protection. He found them hypocrites for screaming for freedom, but winking at slavery. He found their cities far less acceptable than the English ones. There was less gentility. There was more rough edged belligerence (especially to the old enemy: England). He hated it. He returned to England and wrote "American Notes". The book roundly attacked the Americans. He was not forgiven for years.

He compounded the act in his next novel, "Martin Chuzzlewit", from 1843 - 1844. In this period, ironically, he was to start writing his small Christmas novels, the first of which ("A Christmas Carol") would become immortal - far more than "Chuzzlewit" actually did. But "Chuzzlewit" is regarded by critics as the best of Dickens comic novels. Yet if one person out of five reads the novel today I'd be surprised.

The novel deals with young Martin Chuzzlewit (Ben Walden), who is apprenticed to his cousin the architect Seth Pecksniff (Tom Wilkinson). Pecksniff is the British equivalent of Moliere's Tartuffe - the arch-hypocrite. As "tartuffel" is the term based on Moliere's character, so is the word "peck-sniff" due to Dickens (in "You Can't Cheat An Honest Man", an angry Mr. Belgoody - Thurston Hall - tells off Larson E. Whipsnade - W.C.Fields - calling him both a tartuffel and a peck-sniff). Pecksniff, pretending to be religious and good, back-stabs his way through the novel, stealing ideas from other architects (including Martin), and pushing his plans to gain control over Old Martin (the grandfather of the hero), a wealthy, retired merchant. Old Martin is played by Paul Schofield. Schofield also plays Old Martin's younger brother Anthony, who has a son Jonas (Keith Allen). Jonas wants to inherit too.

Dickens had demonstrated a grasp at the criminal mind in his handling of Bill Sykes and Fagin in "Oliver Twist". But the burglar and the thief trainer were relatively simple types (although Sykes fury at Nancy and his subsequent self-destruction was unique for British literature at that time). Jonas was a higher class criminal - a murderer who did it for money, not anger. He first destroys Anthony, and then goes after his cousin Montague Tigg, a cousin who is a swindler and a blackmailer. The killing of Tigg (whom Jonas ambushes while he is riding in a gig) is based (somewhat) on the murder of William Weare by John Thurtell in 1823. But there is more than that in Jonas. He is rejected by Pecksniff's daughter Charity (nicknamed Cherry / played by Emma Chambers), who subsequently gives in to his courting - only to discover he pursued her to punish her for initially rejecting him. He is blackmailed by Tigg into investing in a financial swindle, and purposely pulls his father-in-law Pecksniff into the swindle because he hates the man. Dickens made Jonas an in depth study of evil, and he becomes a center of fascination in the plot.

Meanwhile Young Martin goes to America when he breaks with the thieving Pecksniff. He goes with his friend Mark Tapley (Steve Nicholson). They find nothing likable about Americans who are nasty brutes for the most part. They have bought land from the Eden Land Company, only to find it is swamp land. The only good point is that young Martin's personality does change - he becomes less selfish because Mark and he have to depend on each other for survival.

The other comic person in the novel is Sairey Gamp (Elizabeth Spriggs), a drunken midwife who assists Jonas at times. She keeps her acquaintance Betsy Prigg (Joan Sims) informed all the time of her best friend, Mrs "Arris". George Orwell puts it into proper perspective: More details are given about Mrs. Harris than found in any biography about a real person - for only the drunken Mrs. Gamp sees Ms Harris. Betsy finally calls her up short on this claiming, "I don't think there is such a person." Horrified, Mrs. Gamp insists there is. Later, a desperate Jonas requires a woman to watch someone - Mrs. Gamp, almost heroically, pushes for Mrs. Harris.

The series was quite good in what it showed from the novel, but it cut out the entire American section - really the heart of the novel as it deals with the hero. It was found to be too negative an image. Whether it was or not it weakened the production. What is left is quite good, but one wishes the American chapters had been left in as well.