★★★★☆
The Garrick Theatre feels like a good venue for Dickens. It’s old, for one, and the occasional distant roar of the Northern Line lends a charmingly shabby tone to the literary legend’s work. Tom Piper’s simple stage design – velvet curtains, white drapes, and a lonely chandelier – complete the look.
Eddie Izzard, as it turns out, is also a natural fit. After stints as a marathon runner, actor and Labour politician, the multi-hyphenate is returning to her stand-up-adjacent roots following an acclaimed stint on Broadway. Her performance of Great Expectations is not only an impressive feat of both stamina and memory, but a delightful proof of concept.
By transplanting her Richard Pryor-inspired multi-rolling stand-up style to a bit of drama, Izzard’s performance feels both fresh and a welcome return to Dickens’ popular showman roots. Mark Izzard’s adaptation neatly cuts the notoriously wordy text down to an essential couple of hours, and gives Eddie plenty of opportunity for visual height gags. Dickens’ propensity for larger-than-life characters plays right into her wheelhouse, too, showing off a staggering variety of accents and mannerisms honed over decades on and around the stand-up circuit.
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This performers’ playfulness provides many of Great Expectations' most delightful moments. Simple transitions between locations – an absurdly lengthy coach ride, a spiral staircase – sparkle on the stage in a way not possible on the page. Dickens loved performing his own works on stage in his lifetime, and there’s something gently comforting about Izzard, born exactly 150 years later, she tells us, carrying on that tradition.
That Eddie Izzard is able to make one of Dickens’ best-loved and most-adapted stories feel genuinely fresh is a remarkable achievement. Perhaps inevitably this version of Great Expectations is much funnier than most of its predecessors, with a script holding onto all of Dickens’ witty wordplay and absurd characters. That the tale’s twisty, dramatic heart remains intact is a glowing testament to the writing, and to Eddie’s charisma.
If Izzard would ever stop moving, this feels like the sort of show which could run and run. In typical Eddie style, however, it’ll be done in six weeks. Catch it while you can.
Great Expectations plays at the Garrick Theatre until 1 July.
