The Walk to Dover draws on the narrative from Charles Dickens’ semi-autobiographical novel, David Copperfield (1850) and his feted journey from London to Dover. Chetwynd led a group of walkers in makeshift costumes on the same journey as a seven-day expedition. The walk retraced Copperfield’s steps from a Blacking Warehouse in London, all the way to Dover, where, in the original story, Copperfield found sanctuary with his aunt, Betsy Trotwood. David Copperfield explores class structures in Victorian England as the character negotiates different social, familial and economic circumstances. But while the industrial landscape of Victorian England and the debtor’s prison or ‘workhouse’ provided the context of such struggle in Dickens’ time, it is the credit card debt economy of our current moment that serves as the social context of Chetwynd’s re-imagining. We see in the film slides and still images that frame the narrative in comparison to Copperfield’s plight and Dickens’ story, followed by gonzo style, self-shot video diaries of Chetwynd’s band of adventurers as they retrace his steps. They can be seen foraging for food, interacting with the landscape in both practical and playful ways, taking moments of respite and reflection, and using the streams to swim naked in the summer light. Nothing explicitly mirrors the Dickens story, and we instead see the amateurish interpretation and aloof playfulness of the protagonists as a kind of ironic indignation. But the journey is in many ways the greatest evocation of the plight of Copperfield and is framed in such a way that it holds true as a central motif of anyone facing contemporary struggle. Ideas of freedom, emancipation, and perhaps determination can be felt in the film, and yet there is an anarchic energy to the endeavour that is amplified by the inclusion of a noise rock soundtrack. The London based band Part Chimp supply a chaotic energy to proceedings with songs such as Hello Bastards that mirrors the ambiguous, raucous sentiment and energy of the rambling anachronistic mission.