Martin Chuzzlewit

A long, slow-moving Masterpiece Theatre adaptation of Charles Dickens' fifth novel (and first commercial failure), Martin Chuzzlewit (1844) chronicles the monstrous, and often hilarious, machinations of the Chuzzlewit family. When the elderly Martin (Paul Scofield) quarrels with his namesake grandson and disinherits him on the spot, the news travels fast and a flock of greedy Chuzzlewits descend on the poor old man, determined to worm their way into his will. The most unctuous of these money-grubbers is Seth Pecksniff (Tom Wilkinson), one of the great Dickensian comic characters, who takes on the role of protector to the old Martin, while serving his own less than salutary interests. Although glacially paced, initially, viewers will quickly warm to the wide cast of rogues and innocents that populate Dickens' British landscape. And if the plot seems a bit hackneyed and the ending tends toward smarmy, these faults reside as much with the original work as they do with this handsomely mounted staging. Recommended. (R. Pitman)