Bleak Expectations

Bleak Expectations is a BBC Radio 4 comedy series that premièred in August 2007. It is a pastiche of the works of Charles Dickens – such as Bleak House and Great Expectations, from which it derives its name – and costume dramas set in the same period, and parodies several of their plot devices (such as cruel guardians, idyllic childhoods interrupted, lifelong friendships, earnest young people), whilst simultaneously tending toward a highly surreal humour along the lines of The Goon Show. The series has also demonstrated a fondness for allusions to and parodies of the films of Alec Guinness, particularly the Edwardian satire Kind Hearts and Coronets.

It is written by Mark Evans, who plays minor characters in most episodes, and produced by Gareth Edwards. Its opening and closing theme is the main theme from the Mazurka from Three Characteristic Pieces by Edward Elgar, from a 2004 recording by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

The plot of the first series revolves around Philip "Pip" Bin, inventor of the bin, and his two sisters, Poppy and Pippa, whose seemingly ideal life is disrupted by the death of their father and the madness of their mother. They are then locked away by their guardian, Mr. Gently Benevolent (who, despite his name, is actually the main villain of the piece), in St. Bastard's, the most vicious boarding school in England, and St. Bitch's, a nearby convent. Pip and his sisters attempt to free themselves of their guardian with the help of Harry Biscuit, whose father invented the biscuit. It is narrated by Pip as an old man to the journalist (and his eventual son-in-law) Sourquill, who brings various useless inventions to assist in recording the events.