London Tide review: The National’s moody Dickens musical is hamstrung by PJ Harvey’s dirge-like songs
Despite his place in the history of literature, there haven’t been a huge amount of Dickens on stage in recent years. There’s always Oliver!, of course, 700 adaptations of A Christmas Carol each year, and Eddie Izzard’s one-person Great Expectations last year, but Dickens adaptations have mostly been TV ones of the Sunday night sit-down-and-watch-with-granny type.
’s adaptation of really doesn’t want to be that. With its changed title, the suggestion is of something far muddier, far murkier. Director Ian Rickson constructs a moody production to house Power’s flowing script, and every so often it stops to allow for even moodier songs by PJ Harvey. It’s all a bit of an odd assemblage, those three elements trying to assert themselves individually rather than cohering as a whole.
