A twelve-part BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens first novel. The story follows Samuel Pickwick and three other members of The Pickwick Club as they travel throughout the English countryside by coach observing the phenomena of life and human nature, and recording their experiences for the other members of The Pickwick Club. Their memoirs of these experiences are the Pickwick Papers of the novel’s title. During their travels Pickwick and Friends manage to land themselves in many humorous and sometimes hair-raising misadventures. The episodes are roughly thirty minutes’ duration and are framed with a lively narration.- David Smith
Starring Nigel Stock, Alan Parnaby Clive Swift and Patrick Malahide, with narration spoken by Ray Brooks.
Included in the BBC Classic Drama Collection as DVDs 44, 45.
Note: Pickwick Papers is set in southern England in the years of 1827 to 1831. Among other things this novel gave an enduring literary expression to the “coaching days” period of English life. As Dickens was writing his novel, that period was rapidly being destroyed by the new railroads. An air of nostalgia seems to hang about the coaches, coachmen, macadam roads, and wayside inns that fill the book. Dickens, in fact, played a large part in creating the romance of the coach through his treatment of it in this novel.