Stuck for something to do on a typically wet and miserable Bank Holiday, we decided to pay a visit to Dickens World, the South East’s newest tourist attraction, which opened recently in Chatham, Kent, home to Charles Dickens for many years. Nestling between the town’s Historic Dockyard and a somewhat less historic outlet shopping mall, Dickens World was opened to the public on 25th May, 2007, and all the advertising material we’d seen promised “the day out of a lifetime…with a host of captivating attractions” More accurately, perhaps, it’s a “day in”, since the complex is an indoor one, and taking the inclement weather into account, it seemed like an ideal place to spend the day.

“Take a thrilling, chilling, fun packed journey around Dickensian England celebrating the life, work and times of Charles Dickens” enthuses the promotional leaflet, “and be entertained by a cast of live performers!” My sons were quite taken by the idea of a boat ride which would take in the sights of Dickensian London’s narrow, dingy, rat-infested streets and alleys before continuing on its journey through a Victorian sewer, while other attractions included The Haunted House of Ebenezer Scrooge, a “stunning 4D HD cinema show”, a Victorian schoolroom and a Dickensian shopping mall. A state-of-the-art animatronics show was mentioned too, along with a children’s play area entitled Fagin’s Den (presumably not intended to educate the little Olivers in the art of pocket-picking), and indeed, the whole concept sounded very promising. Would it live up to such Great Expectations, however?

As we edged towards the entrance doors, a group of senior citizens, some in wheelchairs, others aided by walking-sticks, were led by an attendant to the front of the queue and through the entrance reserved for disabled visitors. “Artful Dodgers!” cried one wag in the crowd, while another remarked that we’d all be drawing our pensions by the time the rest of us got in. No race on earth queues with such grace and good humour as the British!

And that was when things began to go downhill. Our first stop was Peggotty’s Boathouse and while there was no sign of the doughty matron herself, we went inside and prepared to “be thrilled by the tales of Dickens’ foreign adventures in a stunning 4D HD cinema show”. In truth, the animation was a touch amateurish and while the narrative detailing Dickens’ travels across America was both interesting and informative, the 4D effects were decidedly unspectacular, a damp squib on this equally damp Bank Holiday Monday.

It seemed that we were destined to spend our day in one queue or another, for suddenly, and without a word of explanation, the queue came to a compete standstill, where we remained for a further 45 minutes, until I and several others eventually gave up waiting and returned to the main courtyard. There we learned that modern-day gremlins had once again got into the works, bringing the boat ride to a temporary halt. Those faithful souls who remained incarcerated inside Newgate Prison for a further 30 minutes or so were able finally to board the ride, but as groups of people began to emerge from the bowels of the sewer, rumblings of discontent could be heard. The peasants had begun to revolt, and several were demanding their money back. Quite apart from the lengthy wait, the ride had, apparently, been something of an anti-climax, summed up by my younger son thus: “Mum, it was rubbish and I didn’t even get wet.” So much then, for the warning notices deterring those with nervous dispositions or heart complaints from taking the ride. Perhaps they were referring to the effects of the interminable wait rather than those of the ride itself.

~ A Rather Bleak House ~

She was correct to an extent; the three rooms were in fact large screens on which short films featuring various Dickens characters being introduced were shown repeatedly. One of the films had no sound, and none of them was the least bit enlightening about either Dickens’ work or his life. As for the ‘house’ itself, this indeed consisted of a long corridor constructed from plywood, and bore no resemblance at all to a house, haunted or otherwise. Quite what the organisers were thinking of here is a mystery, and we eventually came to the conclusion that the scenery-builders must have run out of time in the rush to complete the project before the complex was opened to the public. To describe the experience as a Haunted House is misleading and embarrassingly inappropriate, and I doubt that even the most sensitively-dispositioned souls would have batted an eyelid over it. Without doubt, this had to be the most disappointing aspect of the whole attraction.

~ Food, Glorious Food ~

Looking back on the day, we felt quite cheated, and not just in the fiscal sense. Put simply, Dickens World had failed to live up to its own publicity, and had disappointed both adults and children alike. Some of the promised attractions hadn’t materialised, examples being the Dickensian Shopping Mall and the Britannia Theatre, where the animatronics show was supposed to take place, and it seemed that the publicists had been guilty of using a certain amount of literary licence in this respect. Leaving aside the technical problems, which are always likely to occur in any new venture, the enormous potential to make this an entertaining and educational “day out of a lifetime” had remained unfulfilled, which is a great shame. We neither expected, nor had any desire to see the ‘Disney-fication’ of Charles Dickens, but we couldn’t help feeling that the creativity and effort which had obviously gone into designing and constructing the scenery had been let down badly by the end product.

With a few exceptions, the cast was largely ineffective, and despite being dressed magnificently in period costume, many failed dismally to get into character, merging anonymously into the background or chatting with the uniformed members of staff. Others were woefully miscast – the young schoolmaster comes to mind – and while one young lady made a sterling effort to engage some children in Victorian street games, the characterisation was, on the whole, a pretty lacklustre and amateurish affair. I would have liked to have seen more street entertainers and maybe some mock-up scenes featuring some of the well known characters from the books; a little more imagination and application was all that was required.