Mark Evans's deliciously irreverent spoof of all things Victorian and melodramatic was originally created as a Radio 4 comedy (now in its fifth series). The novel purports to be the memoirs of Victorian industrialist, novelist and occasional blundering fool Sir Philip "Pip" Bin, rescued from obscurity and edited by Evans, whose footnotes are a lovely spoof of the pointless pedantry of academics.

Allusions to Dickens permeate virtually every page, from the title to the ironic character names; the dastardly villain is known as Mr Gently Benevolent, while a kindly and generous character is called Mr Skinflint Parsimonious. The narrative resembles David Copperfield as half-remembered by an acid-tripper, and revolves around the ups and downs of gallant Pip's early life, from his incarceration inside "the most brutal school in the whole of Britain", St Bastard's, to his (often accidental) killing of all members of the hideous Hardthrasher family.

Evans keeps the gag rate high, and what Bleak Expectations lacks in subtlety it makes up for in frequent hilarity. Clearly written with real affection for its antecedents, the lurches into wild surrealism amuse far more often than they irritate, and the repartee between the protagonists often attains an almost dizzying level of absurd pleasure. The biggest surprise is that, by the end, the story becomes as stirring as it is ridiculous, thanks to characters who, while still admittedly ridiculous, are far more engaging than you'd normally expect in a parody of this sort. Fingers crossed for a sequel.