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 – as well as adventure, science fiction and costume dramas set in the same period, and parodies several of their plot devices (such as cruel guardians, idyllic childhoods interrupted, lifelong friendships and 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 revolves around Philip "Pip" Bin, inventor of the bin and his various fantastic adventures as he attempts to thwart the machinations of his evil ex-guardian, Mr. Gently Benevolent. 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.
Production and broadcast history.
The pilot episode was recorded in March 2006. The first series was broadcast at 11.30am on Wednesdays from 15 August 2007, with the first series repeated on Radio 4 from 9 January 2008 and subsequently on BBC 7. A second series was commissioned in late 2007, and was recorded on 18, 23 and 26 May 2008 at the BBC Radio Theatre. The British Comedy Guide website gave it its British Comedy Guide Editors' Award for 2008. A third series was recorded at the Radio Theatre, Broadcasting House, on 7, 14 and 28 June 2009, the first episode of which was broadcast on Radio 4 on 29 October 2009. The third series won a Bronze Radio Academy Award in the Comedy category in 2010. Recordings for the fourth six-part series began on 11 September 2010, again at the BBC Radio Theatre, and transmission began on 11 November 2010.
Mark Evans tweeted on 20 Dec 2011 that a fifth series of the show would be made in 2012 for broadcast on Radio 4. The first of the six episodes of this fifth series, titled "A Pleasant Yet Dull Life Re-Evilled", was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 6.30pm on 20 November 2012.
"The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff", a televisual spiritual successor to "Bleak Expectations", written and produced by the same crew, was first broadcast on BBC Two on 19 December 2011.
"Bleak Expectations", a novelisation of the first series, written by Mark Evans was published in November 2012 by Constable & Robinson.