Eddy Payne as David Copperfield at the Jermyn Street Theatre. Image: Steve Gregson
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Beneath the flickering lights of London’s West End and the rush of Christmas shoppers, there is a little underground theatre where dozens of people are immersed in a Charles Dickens tale.
This is not the festive classic A Christmas Carolor the iconic musical adaptation of Oliver! but the epic adventures of David Copperfield.
Dickens’ novel tells the story of a boy, Copperfield, who is born unlucky. He is passed between a batty aunts, terrifying stepfather and a miserable boarding school, among a host of other eccentric characters, before he reaches the falling-in-love stage of adolescence and pursues his dream of being a writer.
In the Jermyn Street Theatre, which has just 70 seats, it feels like a mammoth task. David Copperfield is one of Dickens’ heftiest works, and this is a tiny stage with just three actors to fill it.
But these actors, along with brilliantly clever staging and costuming, pull it off in a show that is utterly joyful. There is still some of the darkness of the novel but that is condensed into an intimate, funny and charming take on David Copperfield.
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It’s hard work. The theatre is so small that you see sweat dripping off the actors’ faces as they perform even in the back row. Two of the actors, Luke Barton and Louise Bereford, play nine characters each.
They switch (almost seamlessly) from characters like old Mrs Peggotty in drag to the whimsical Mr Dick, or from oddly-childlike wife Dora to cunning schoolmate James Steerforth. It’s a lot of lines, a lot of accents, and a lot of costume changes – many of which are done on stage in the middle of a scene.
Eddy Payne as David Copperfield and Luke Barton and Louise Bereford as Mr and Mrs Micawber. Image: Steve Gregson
Eddy Payne, who plays David Copperfield, barely leaves the stage for a moment. And just like his co-stars, he has bags of charm in his portrayal of the titular character.
Guildford Shakespeare Companyleads on this adaptation, following the success of their version of Pride and Prejudice at the same theatre last year.
This production of David Copperfield is exceptionally fast-paced. They squeeze a 370,000-word novel, and its complicated web of adventures, into a streamlined play. At just two hours and 20 minutes, including an interval, it is relatively short for an adaptation of Dickens’ epic.
There are small stumbles. A lost button bounced across the stage in a minor costume mishap, and one of the actors tripped over a wooden box and almost flung himself into the audience when he got too excited in a joyous dance scene. But these almost add to the charming chaos of the production. I’m tempted to say I hope they keep the crinkles in as the show continues its run.
The clever staging pulls the whole production together. They use a puppet to play one of the characters, and a blue dress billows out to become the sea. David Copperfield’s terrible stepfather is a faceless suit and top hat, held up and choreographed by Barton.
It dims some of the aggression of the horrific moments Copperfield faces as a child, in a way that still feels powerful but not quite as dark as the novel. For this version of the story, which is condensed and quippy, it strikes the right tone.
It’s not quite the terrifying realism we sometimes see in Dickens, but it’s pure escapism, and the humour packs a punch. So, if you’ve tired of Scrooge this festive season, meet David Copperfield and the troopers in this cast. It is a genuinely lovely way to pass an evening in the West End.
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