Unusually for Dickens Hard Times is set not in London but in the imaginary mid-Victorian Northern industrial town of Coketown with its blackened factories downtrodden workers & polluted environment. This is the soulless domain of the strict utilitarian Thomas Gradgrind & the heartless factory owner Josiah Bounderby. However human joy is not excluded thanks to Mr Slearys Horse-Riding circus a gin-soaked & hilarious troupe of open-hearted & affectionate people who act as an antidote to all the drudgery & misery endured by the ordinary citizens of Coketown.