Review: DAVID COPPERFIELD, Jermyn Street Theatre

David Copperfield doesn’t seem like the obvious choice for panto season. That being said, one can hardly imagine a better venue for Dickens’s classic tale of a country boy finding his way in London’s arcane alleyways than Jermyn Street.

For the most part, Guildford Shakespeare Company – who gave a similar treatment to Pride & Prejudice in this venue this time last year – have managed to tread the line between festive silliness and psychological depth. Astute abridgements have been made to Dickens’s meandering Bildungsroman, and what emerges is a charming set of vignettes hitting the major beats of the eponymous would-be hero’s life.

The company fully embrace the exaggerated facial expressions and hasty costume changes characteristic of panto (there’s even a Punch and Judy show at one point). Characters like the verbose Mr Micawber, reading out the sins of Uriah Heep from a comically oversized scroll, particularly suit this approach.

At the same time, the production is anchored by Eddy Payne, who plays David with a quivering sense of hard-earned wisdom that quietly belies the trauma of his youth. Pleasingly, writer Abigail Pickard Price has resisted the temptation of making the young Master Copperfield a bland narrator figure instead of a fully formed character, and his brief sections of autobiographical exposition never impact the story’s overall momentum.

All other characters, meanwhile, are multi-roled by Luke Barton and Louise Beresford, and inevitably sometimes Dickens’ finely drawn characters get rolled into indistinguishable ‘patrician’ or ‘ingenue’ archetypes. Still, it’s testament to Pickard Price’s precise direction that this ambitious narrative retains space for moments of vulnerability, even when there are quick changes happening on stage and a metaphorical checklist of plot points to tick off.

The set design, by Neil Irish, is in keeping with the tonal mismatch that shouldn’t work, but somehow does. The kitschy Victoriana littering the set never threatens to overwhelm the subtleties of the script, while Matt Eaton’s soundtrack of sea shanties and folky strings can feel cosy or menacing as the story demands.

The show’s pacing suffers somewhat after the interval, when David experiences several betrayals and bereavements in quick succession, and neither he nor the audience seem to find time to breathe. Again, though, Copperfield finds itself when it slows down, and allows us to sit with the characters’ emotions, particularly those of David and his first love, Emily (whose role is slightly expanded upon here).

Indeed, the perilous scenes at sea off the Norfolk coast, where David first meets Emily, feel miles apart from the London boarding houses, hazy green light seeping in through sash windows at the back of the set. It’s here that the play is at its most moving, the intimate set suddenly feeling expansive rather than stuffy, giving the show a capital-R Romantic edge and elevating it above domestic tragicomedy.

This David Copperfield is far more than a cheap facsimile of its source material. There is room here for all the observational humour of Dickens’ writing, but also for all the pains and lessons of growing up.

David Copperfield plays at Jermyn Street Theatre until 20 December