Classic Drama
3: Bleak House
It may not be as famous as Oliver Twist and Great Expectations, but Bleak House has got to be Charles Dickens’s greatest novel. He crammed in everything he knew about Victorian London, and reading the result is the next best thing to time travel.
On the surface it’s a satirical (and still relevant) assault on the British legal system – how corrupt lawyers, aristocrats and businessmen use the courts for their own ends. Satire makes up just one layer of the novel however - it’s also a story of forbidden love, family secrets and intrigues.
And, being Dickens, the book is jam-packed with unforgettable characters, not least of all London itself– the sprawl of the city and the curling tentacles of fog have never been depicted so powerfully. This is escapism at its most beguiling.
Our Programmes
All Creatures Great And Small
| Ballykissangel
| Bergerac
| Butterflies
| Catherine Cookson
| Dalziel And Pascoe
| Hetty Wainthropp Investigates
| Howards’ Way
| Judge John Deed
| Last Of The Summer Wine
| Miss Marple
| Murder She Wrote
| New Tricks
| Pride And Prejudice
| Sharpe
| Silent Witness
| Steptoe And Son
| Taggart
| The Dick Emery Show
| The Inspector Lynley Mysteries
| The Rise And Fall Of Reginald Perrin
| To The Manor Born
| Waiting For God
| Waking The Dead
