Oliver Twist

The performances are excellent all around. Sophie Okonedo is a fine Nancy, so thoroughly believable as is Tom Hardy, Timothy Spall and Sarah Lancashire. The children playing Oliver and Dodger give subtle performances, so were obviously directed extremely well.

I did not have any problems with the changes to the narrative and I know the novel well, but in the time constraints of the series, I thought the changes made sense. At first I thought the music surprising but very quickly I felt it suited the style of the story telling.

Very fine effort from the BBC, they are so thorough with period dramas, I can't remember the last time they stuffed one up.

Not the greatest production of Dickens' classic, let down in the main by mixed acting and an over-intrusive musical score at odds with the period in which the drama is set. The casting is unusual to say the least, in particular a coloured actress plays Nancy and although Sophie Okonedo acts well she doesn't quite carry off the novelty. Also Gregor Fisher is unconvincing as Mr Bumble, Edward Fox barely registers any emotion in his part and Tom Hardy as Bill Sykes fails to demonstrate the innate psychopathy, indeed the way the part is played, you almost feel the director is straying dangerously close to glamourising and thus garnering sympathy for what is, on the page a yobbish brute. The whole is dominated by Timothy Spall's take on the Fagin part. For me he grossly overacts in a very mannered way and repels this viewer with some slightly distasteful mannerisms. Better are Sarah Lancashire as Bumble's selfish scheming wife and Rob Brydon in a fine comic turn as a judge with attitude but against that, the child acting is very poor, they merely seem to read their lines, certainly no Jack Wild here and the only really imaginative scenes are those where the murdered Nancy's ghost haunts Sykes as he takes Oliver hostage on his escape to the country and back. This was a made for TV mini-series and it shows. A great story reduced in the re-telling.

This is a fairly well-made version of an old chestnut. Casting and sets are up to BBC's usual high standards, just the music made me pause sometimes (sort of New Age klezmer). The story has a great flaw: the scenes in Mr. Brownlow's house are dull and uninspired, while the scenes in the orphanage and Fagin's hide-away are bursting with life. It's as if Dickens could only trust the criminal side of the story to be truthful. The lop-sided story is still very moving.

I liked Timothy Spall as Fagin very much; he went far to erase some faint memories of Alec Guinness in the part. Spall is more subtly Jewish than Guinness was. Sarah Lancashire is riotously funny, and quite vicious too, as Mrs. Corny. Julian Rhind-Tutt is appropriately villainous as Monks.

With this version, and having not read the original, I never realised the original story was ant-semitic, particularly when Fagin was being sentenced by the Judge, and in this version Fagin was called "fagin the Jew". I guess all the previous versions were censored or adapted as they are described.

I was more interested in the story than the acting, although I thought the mood was captured quite well. Edward Fox was fine as Mr. Brownlow, a previous review suggested he was cold but I suspect the actor was correct and portrayed his character according to the period, also this was a drama not a sing song version.

As far as I am aware this is the only version to include the references I have described earlier in any version whether TV or Movie.

In terms of Dickens dramatisations on televisions, this 2007 dramatisation of "Oliver Twist" is not as good as 2005's "Bleak House" or 2008's "Little Dorritt", both of which were outstanding. In terms of adaptations of this complicated book, it has its downsides but is a solid one. My personal favourite version is the 1948 David Lean film, that had gorgeous cinematography, dramatic music, masterly story-telling, an outstanding Alec Guiness despite the admittedly over-sized nose and a genuinely frightening Robert Newton. This adaptation isn't as good as that version or the timeless 1968 musical, but I personally preferred it over the 1982 TV film with George C.Scott and Tim Curry, that had fine acting but hindered by some questionable plot changes and the 2005 Roman Polanski film, which was decent but bloated. The only one I haven't seen yet is the 1997 film with Elijah Wood, by all means I will give it a chance but I have been told it is one of the worst adaptations of the book.

Back on target, the period detail is excellent here with realistic looking sets and well tailored costumes. I for one liked the score, the opening sequence is wonderful, but there are also some dramatic, haunting and beautiful parts when it needed to be. The direction is good especially with Nancy's ghost, the scripting was above decent (I didn't notice any soapish qualities about it) and the pace was good. Dickens's book is insightful but complex in characterisation, particularly with Fagin, there are changes here but the storytelling was not that bad I thought. The acting is mostly very good, William Miller gives Oliver a fair amount of innocence while giving him some steel too. Sophie Okenedo is a subtle Nancy, Gregor Fisher is a suitably grotesque Mr Bumble, Edward Fox is a fine Mr Brownlow and Julian Rhind-Tutt is startling as Monks. The best characterisation though was Tom Hardy as Bill Sikes. Sikes is a turbulent, big, burly and violent man and not only did Hardy meet all of these brilliantly, his interpretation was also emotionally complex.

However, there were one or two disappointments. I may be the only one who was disappointed in Timothy Spall's Fagin. I have nothing personal against Spall, far from it, he is an exceptional actor, but Fagin is supposed to be in my opinion oily, vile and manipulative. Fagin here was more reminiscent of WormTail but with an accent and he was too passive. Away from the casting, the other flaw was the length, having been timed during the Christmas season the later part of the dramatisation felt rather stretched.

Overall, this is a good dramatisation, not outstanding but worth the look. 8/10 Bethany Cox