With an all-star cast including Stephen Rea, Pauline Collins, Tuppence Middleton, Caroline Quentin and Omid Djalili, Dickensian has entertained millions since the Christmas period on BBC One.
After twenty episodes, the show, which sat The Old Curiosity Shop next to The Three Cripples Inn and Fagin’s Den and pitted characters like Miss Havisham and Scrooge together on the same street in 19th century London, has racked up quite the fascinating factoid list – check out the stats below.
1. Dickensian has a fully functional pub set. That must be handy, especially when you want some more…
2. Urgh! The taxidermist’s shop has a collection of real human bones inside!
3. eBay-winner Scrooge? Much of the furniture was obtained from auctions, large antiques fairs around the country and over 500 separate eBay purchases.
4. All of the circular tables in the Three Cripples are authentic Victorian pub tables and the two large lanterns outside were from a public building in France – oo la la!
5. The shopping high street is almost 100m long and has a parallel ‘domestic’ street of 40m (and a number of back alleys too for all sorts of naughty shenanigans).
7. The street is finished with a pressed cobbled surface consisting of 98 tons of sand and cement and 12 stretches of flagstone pavements. It was constructed over a period of five months by over 50 full time craftsmen.
8. A Tale of Four Countries – the tops of all the street lamps were made to order in Belgium; the wagons came from Hungary; the two large crystal chandeliers in Satis House were imported from the Czech Republic; the hand crocheted lace table cloths from Garraway’s were imported from China.
9. Dickensian’s set includes a working forge and an extensive market place.
10. What ho! Over 50 top hats were used in the show.
11.Strewth! Martha Cratchit’s wedding dress came all the way from Australia!
13. Most of the large paintings both landscapes and portraits were originals painted by members of the art department. Some of the portraits depict members of the crew.
14. Book House – half of the books in Jaggers & Tulkinghorn’s are fake books made by a specialist company.
15. There are over a 100 working doors. There are eight working fireplaces on the main street and six in the interior sets.
16. There are 27 buildings on the streets at two and a half storeys high, nine of which are complete four walled working shops with full ground floor interiors with shop front windows and facades.
17. There are over 500 costumes used in Dickensian (around 30 were made specifically for the show).
Sadly, the BBC did not consider using the Muppets in this Dickens mash-up. Maybe next time?
Dickensian is available to download from the BBC Store now, and on DVD from Feb 29
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