Bemusement park: Where Dickens meets Disney
Can the kids put down their iPods to relive Pip's hardships – in grim and smelly fashion?
from the May 25, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
He led me to the courtyard, a quite mesmerizing brown-and-gray, faithful rendering of a Victorian town center, where he introduced me to a Ned Fiendish, a rat catcher. "How do you do?" asks Ned, tipping his tall brown hat in my direction. Next we climb a winding staircase to visit Dotheboys' Hall, a Victorian schoolroom. I instantly feel 10 years old – worse, 10 and stuck in unforgiving Victorian England. An actor playing a rotund, red-faced schoolteacher, dressed in a headmaster's cap and gown, bellows at us to take our seats. And we do, obediently plonking down on the harsh wooden benches and observing the various slogans on the walls: "BE SEEN AND NOT HEARD," "RESPECT THY ELDERS."
Escaping the glare of the scary teacher, we headed toward Marshalsea Prison, a stark recreation of the dungeons in which Dickens's real-life dad was imprisoned for running up debts. As a result, 12-year-old Charles had to work 10-hour days in a boot-blacking factory. "We want to educate people about Dickens's own life as well as his books," explained Mr. Lupton.
Drat! One of the most attractive-sounding experiences – Ebenezer Scrooge's Haunted House – wasn't finished yet. Trevor assured me it will be very scary: "Ghosts, noises, the works." We climbed another stairwell to Fagin's Den. Fagin, of course, is the master of thieves in "Oliver Twist" who takes in destitute young kids and teaches them art of picking a pocket or two. So how has Dickens World presented Fagin's Den? As a children's playpen, of course, where young' uns can muck about on slides and climbing frames and bounce off soft, colorful walls.
Despite the fact that the prestigious Dickens Fellowship has given its blessing to Dickens World, there have been murmurs of disgruntlement about the transformation of the life and works of one of Britain's best-loved writers into a theme park. I mean, it's people like Dolly Parton, not Charles Dickens, who get their own amusement parks, right?
Kevin Christie, managing director of Dickens World, brushes aside these "snobbish arguments." Sitting at a table in the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters Bar, the park's food-and-drink outlet (no, Twist-style gruel on sale), Christie told me that "Dickens was a showman."
"He loved giving public readings, in Europe and America. His novels were originally published in serial form in magazines, complete with nail-biting cliffhangers. Dickens's work was like a soap opera for Victorian times. You know, if he were alive now, I bet he'd love Dickens World. He'd probably be a shareholder."
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