TV Reviews : Dickens’ ‘Chuzzlewit’ Grovels in Greed

A mini-Charles Dickens festival is emerging on TV. Last weekend the Disney Channel aired “The Old Curiosity Shop,” and beginning Sunday on “Masterpiece Theatre” is the five-part American premiere of “Martin Chuzzlewit,” followed by Dickens’ “Hard Times” on PBS at month’s end.

“Martin Chuzzlewit,” although not among the most familiar of Dickens’ novels, is arguably the author’s comic, satiric masterpiece. A sprawling plot filled with oily, corrupt characters scheming to get their clutches on the inheritance of a rich, bitter, old family patriarch (Paul Scofield), the story revels in greed, hypocrisy and selfishness.

The groveling is tied to a typical Dickensian brew of farce, drama, love, murder and suicide.

As often the case with “Masterpiece Theatre” adaptations that bulge with characters the novel can leisurely introduce, be forewarned that the first episode of “Martin Chuzzlewit” requires viewer patience. It’s a blur of mostly nasty Victorians scrambling to outfox one another in an otherwise cozy 1830s rural village.

Rather than try too hard to separate all these characters, it’s more rewarding to sit back and let the characters and their machinations sweep over you. You’ll become comfortable soon enough and, by the third episode, you’ll be hooked, particularly by Scofield (up for an Oscar on Monday for his work in “Quiz Show”), the nefarious Jonas Chuzzlewit (the sinister and feral Keith Allen) and the boisterous re-creation of the book’s pair of comic portraits: the callow Seth Pecksniff (Tom Wilkinson) and the bulbous-nosed, busybody nightnurse, Mrs. Gamp (Elizabeth Spriggs).

You may not, by the way, be able to comprehend a word of Mrs. Gamp’s rough 19th-Century proletarian dialogue, but not to worry. With this whole British production, ably adapted by David Lodge and vividly directed by Pedr James, it’s the flavor that counts.

* “Martin Chuzzlewit” airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on KCET-TV Channel 28, at 8 p.m. on KVCR-TV Channel 24 and at 9:30 p.m. on KPBS-TV Channel 15, and on Tuesday at 8 p.m. on KOCE-TV Channel 50.