Tony Jordan pitched the BBC a Victorian precinct drama where Scrooge's counting house sits opposite Fagin's den and the Three Cripples pub serves Dodger and Miss Havisham under the same roof. Across twenty half-hour instalments, characters from nine novels—Stephen Rea's Inspector Bucket investigates Marley's murder while Tuppence Middleton's Amelia Havisham prepares to jilt Tom Weston-Jones's Compeyson—collide in a single shared universe.
The show was shot at Pinewood's Victorian backlot, recycled from 2012's Parade's End, with fog pumped in nightly to hide the plywood behind the Old Curiosity Shop. Ratings opened at 5.3 million on Boxing Day 2015, slid below three by February, and the BBC pulled the plug before the finale aired, leaving Arthur Havisham literally mid-strangulation in a debtors' cell. Netflix later recut the serial into ten hour-long episodes for international markets, but the cliff-hanger remains forever unresolved.
Production Details
BBC One / 1 Season / 20 Episodes / 2015
Created by: Tony Jordan Sarah Phelps Simon Winstone Julie Rutterford Justin Young Chloe Moss
Writer(s): Tony Jordan, Julie Rutterford, Simon Winstone
Main Cast
Alexandra Moen as Frances Barbary
Ned Dennehy as Ebenezer Scrooge
Stephen Rea as Inspector Bucket
Pauline Collins as Mrs Gamp
Peter Firth as Jacob Marley
Phoebe Dynevor as Martha Cratchit
Omid Djalili as Mr Venus
Zaak Conway as Tim Cratchit
Joseph Quinn as Arthur Havisham
Tuppence Middleton as Amelia Havisham
Sophie Rundle as Honoria Barbary
Tom Weston-Jones as Meriweather Compeyson
