When I was a child, I was fascinated by a particular kind of penny-in-the-slot machine - the sort you found in the arcade at the end of the pier, if the pier's attractions were particularly run down.
In those days pennies were really big copper coins - bigger than any coin in use today. If you held them tightly in your hand and your hand sweated, you would acquire a green stain on your palm.
The coins were old. too. Particularly sought after were "bun pennies" with their image of the young Queen Victoria, with her hair in a bun - though it was sometimes hard to make her out on the battered and faded coins. But those were coins that had been shiny new in Charlie Peace's era, though he was ambitious for more wealth than a mere penny represented.
I don't know if the penny-in-the-slot machines I loved were around in Charlie Peace's lifetime but I suspect some, at least, represented the moment of his death. Public executions might have ended in Britain, and parents no longer gave copies of the Newgate Calendar to their children as a dreadful warning, but end-of-the-pier machines showed, as well as haunted houses and "what the butler saw," a variety of executions, including the French guillotine and the British "long drop." While they were bleakly macabre, they also offered the final episode of an unknown story - something to spark the imagination.
Early in Michael Eaton's new play about the Victorian burglar, murderer and folk-hero Charlie Peace, there is just such a tableau. It's part of an entertainment that harks back to Victorian and pre-Victorian popular culture. It doesn't belong with the sedate cup-and-saucer dramas intended for upper-middle-class audiences " or the slightly later problem play which barely questioned middle-class morality. This is part music-hall entertainment, with its master of ceremonies, music and spectacle, and part the kind of melodrama that might have stemmed from one of the "penny gaffs" or "blood tubs" that came into being when "legitimate theatre" was restricted to England's few patent houses. There are also elements of broadside ballads in some of the songs while either side of the set are huge playbills in the Victorian mode.
The great achievement of the play and its excellent cast is that it demonstrates that this kind of spectacle, so often sneered at by theatrical critics, still works for an audience, and works exceptionally well. While most performances in this mode are either pantomimes, which have to work for a family audience, or slightly superior mockeries of the genre, Charlie Peace engages with the mode and celebrates it. At the time, I was too caught up in the plot to analyse my response but I recall laughing, gasping, sitting on the edge of my seat and admiring the craft and dexterity of the actors. And while the play is not about careful characterization or anguished doubt, Peter Duncan was entirely credible as the kind of friendly villain who could be charming, anguished, angry or ingratiating depending on the company in which he found himself.
There is something serious going on too. The play led me, at any rate, to consider why I find law-breakers like Charlie so engaging and why apparent villains have such a hold on the English popular imagination. Plainly class is an element but it's not just that. I wonder if Charlie Peace has a similar hold over the imagination of people who always expect the law to protect their own interests.
But you need to see the play for yourself. It's at Nottingham Playhouse until 19th October and then it moves to the Belgrade Theatre at Coventry. I don't know if it's touring any more widely but if I was running a theatre capable of staging it, I'd try to get this play with this cast if at all possible. Get to see it if you can.
I would like to praise the director but unfortunately I mislaid my programme - or perhaps Charlie snitched it (it's the sort of thing he might have done) so I don't know who the director is. The sets, by graphic artist Eddie Campbell, are marvellous and the stage technicians have evidently worked hard, to very good effect.
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Beneath the layers of sentimentalism, Oliver Twist is a story of child abuse. This gets lost in the famous musical adaptation where Harry Secombe is a cuddly Mr Bumble and Ron Moody a witty, affectionate Fagin.
The new adaptation I caught in Derby last Friday was clear about the violence and brutality. Oliver was caught in the government-ordered cruelty of the workhouse and escaped to the similar cruelties of Fagin and Bill Sikes. Starvation, violence, prison and execution were more probable for children than the luck of meeting a generous philanthropist. And Nancy wasn't a cheerful tart with a heart but a desperate young woman in the clutches of her pimp, who had been one of Fagin's child-thieves at the age of six and moved into prostitution as the next step.
Adaptations of Dickens have to decide which plots to include and which to omit. For those who know the original novel, this included Monks and omitted Rose Maylie. If you don't know who they are, you can easily find out. People in the audience who had never read the novel gasped at some of the twists in the plot so I'm not planning to give it away.
Oliver Twist is still relevant. A programme note mentioned the way some of today's politicians blame the poor for everything that goes wrong in their life. It made me realise that today Oliver would be wearing a hoodie while the Artful Dodger would be glorying in a string of ASBOs.
But while it would be easy to update the plot, this version kept the story in its original setting. The first episodes were published in the months before Victoria came to the throne and it belongs to the violent class antagonisms of that time. In particular, the book attacks the inhumanity of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment, driven in part by the desire to punish "bastardy" - that's why Oliver is illegitimate. This version echoed this theme by emphasising the role of Oliver's young mother, driven to run away from a sense of shame and guilt.
There are songs too. Lionel Bart's songs have a lot going for them. They express a working-class determination to survive and celebrate - but they're a long way from Dickens. The songs in this play expressed radical criticism of injustice and inequality. I don't think Dickens would ever have sung such songs but the reminder of the anger that fuelled them said something about the audience of Dickens' novels. Anyone who finds Dickens' story too violent, extreme and sentimental should try G.W. M. Reynolds' monumental Mysteries of London, which became a much larger seller just ten years later. But that's another story - or, to be accurate, a compendium of interweaving stories - and far longer and more melodramatic than anything Dickens wrote.
Note: I wanted to find links to the songs from the play, since I think they may come from the period and they would have shown the contrast with Lionel Bart. But I couldn't find them. So I'm linking to Chumbawamba singing two songs which are probably a year or two later than Oliver Twist: The Chartist Anthem and Poverty Knock (which is from the north of England, not London). They're the nearest I can get.
Suddenly summer has arrived. As always, its arrival leaves me sick and headachey for a couple of days. I need time to adjust to the sudden warmth and sunlight.
There are disasters and follies elsewhere - madness and crime at home and abroad. Meanwhile politicians court us with promises of discipline and punishment - for others, not us. We are supposed to believe that criminals are other people, out on the edge of society - not real human beings who rejoice and suffer. I wonder if there is anyone my age who hasn't committed a crime, or at least an infringement of local by-laws.
Summer is often a time for breaking laws and breaching boundaries. It's the 40th anniversary of the "evenements" in Paris with all the confused hope for a better world that they offered. The collected graffiti of those days in French or English gives a glimpse of heady optimism. It's hard to grasp that now - or the recent repression and colonial wars that must have informed the rebellion.
At home, simple boundaries are broken. People move from their kitchens and living rooms to balconies and gardens. The barbecue season has commenced. Perhaps I should buy a barbecue and grill veggie burgers and haloumi kebabs. Cooking, reading and work can be done out of doors, though not until I've mowed the lawn and clipped the hedge. Eventually there will be contacts with neighbours.
Meanwhile insects and spiders have begun to invade the house. I marvel at their fragility and perseverance as I try to evict them. Spiders are easy to manage. If necessary I can cup them in my hands before moving them outdoors. But I've seen three wasps this week - two in the bathroom. I caught the first two, imprisoning each in a tooth mug before sliding paper underneath. Then I released them in the garden.
The third wasp buzzed around the lampshade on the landing by the hatch that leads to the loft. It stayed out of reach and I needed to get to work. I don't think three wasps means a nest. I hope not.
