Great Expectations for Dickens theme park

By Paul Majendie

CHATHAM (Reuters) - Literary purists may quake at the prospect of a Charles Dickens theme park complete with a Great Expectations boat ride and Ye Olde Curiosity Gift Shop.

But Dickens World, a 62 million pound complex built in the naval dockyard where his father once worked as a clerk, is confidently predicting 300,000 visitors a year to this new attraction dedicated to the Victorian author.

"We are not Disneyfying Dickens," insists manager Ross Hutchins as he dons hard hat and fluorescent jacket to tour the site, a hive of activity as the Fagin's den playground and Newgate Prison's grimy walls are given their finishing touches.

"If Dickens was alive today, he would probably have built the place himself, " Hutchins said of the theme park in Chatham, once a big unemployment blackspot after the dockyards closed in the 1980s but now a major regeneration target.

"In fact, if Dickens was alive today, he would probably have been working for television as a scriptwriter. He was very much a populist," he said of the author of classic tales like "Oliver Twist".

Some critics may have been scornful of the project in the lead-up to its opening on April 20.

But Hutchins insists the attraction -- a dark, dirty and dank London is populated by thieves, murderers and ghosts -- has the air of authenticity as it was built in consultation with experts from the Dickens Fellowship.

"Is the world ready for a Dickens theme park?" The Observer asked of the giant indoor attraction.