COPPER LOAD OF THAT...
RITER-DIRECTOR Armando Iannucci realises great expectations with his madcap spin on one of Charles Dickens’ indomitable literary heroes.
The Personal History Of David Copperfield breathlessly abridges the mid-19th century serial and novel to focus on the quixotic and colourful characters, whose fates intersect with the titular hero.
A galaxy of stars in the British acting firmament sparkle in small yet perfectly formed roles including a delightfully bonkers Tilda Swinton as Betsey Trotwood, who mistakes salad dressing for smelling salts, and Peter Capaldi as lovable rapscallion Mr
Micawber.
The setting may be pungently
Victorian but the tone is unmistakably modern from the hero’s knowing narration to nudge-nudge wink-wink flashes of directorial brio that bookmark each chapter of David’s rites of passage.
Dev Patel plays the likeable comic foil in the midst of the madness, who is slowly educated in the whims of his fellow man, but flecks of tragedy are always hand-tied with fanciful ribbons to humour. For example, when David’s mother perishes, the sad news is related in hilariously ham-fisted graduations of the truth – “Very ill”, “Dangerously ill”, “She’s dead!”
As a young tyke, David Copperfield (Jairaj Varsani) is raised by his mother Clara (Morfydd Clark) and housekeeper Peggotty (Daisy May Cooper) in a home filled with laughter and love until the arrival of a stern and cruel stepfather, Edward Murdstone (Darren Boyd). The new man of the house beats and terrorises David, who is dispatched to London into the dubious care of debt-riddled landlord Mr Micawber (Capaldi).
As David comes of age (now played by Patel), he aims to become a scholarly man of the