GrimPrecise I'll tell you why so serious

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

martinoconnell This version of Oliver Twist is by far and away the best. It manages to feature virtually all the characters major and minor which so many other versions fail to do. The 1948 version is great but this one trumps it. Godfrey James as Bumble carries off the role very well as does Eric Porter who is truly menacing as Fagin. Frank Middlemass as Brownlow is just how one would imagine that character. The two actors play Oliver was a master stroke of casting. I could watch this again and again for the acting alone and the brilliance of the set. Well done to all concerned. Other versions fall wide of the mark but this stays faithful to the story. Even Mrs. Corny is played to a tee by Miriam Margoyles.

tlloydesq It is not easy televising Dickens. His novels are so vivid you have a picture of the characters in your mind. This series uses its 12 29 minute parts to make the images its own and enhance them. I could get carried away with superlatives so let's look at the negatives which really centre on the Maylie household. This takes up the best part of 2 or 3 episodes and is pretty dull. The first couple of episodes are difficult but that is part of the acclimatisation process noted above. Now onto the superlatives.The BBC has done an amazing job in conjuring up both the riches of the middle classes but more importantly the desperate poverty on the streets. The state of Fagin's quarters and Sykes' disgusting one room hovel are hard to contemplate. The state of the Thames is reminiscent of Dickens' telling.The acting is top class. Too many to mention but Eric Porter as sly, devious, charming and mercenary Fagin is one, Michael Attwell brings menace to Bill Sykes. Pip Donaghy triumphs as Monks. Godfrey James as bully boy Mr Bumble and Miriam Margoyles as his soon to be domineering wife. The list goes on. So refreshing to see a case of actors building on substantial roles.The story is modified: Betsy disappears altogether and Monks takes on a starring role. The last few parts are riveting as the net closes. I could go on. TV does not get much better

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU Twelve episodes again for this super-classic story, twelve stations on this way of the cross. That gives the director the time he needs to get down to details since he has three times more time than a normal film director. To see the twelve episodes in one go is also a great privilege because each episode is fresh in your memory when you move to the next. This dramatic suspense is essential in this story if you want to enjoy the social Deus Ex Machina used by Charles Dickens to make a bleak and sinister story into a fairy tale.The story is, at the time of Charles Dickens, about the monstrous social system and its social over-exploitation of orphans and the poor. It is the practice of municipal workhouses in which the poor and orphans are enslaved into doing simple tasks that are profitable for the businessmen for whom they are performed. Dying in that environment is a liberation.On the other hand, if you manage to evade that over-exploitation, you can find your freedom in the enterprising life of thieves organized in bands that are real businesses. The end will unavoidably be death by hanging, or if you are lucky forced labor in some distant colony, but you will have enjoyed your freedom during your short career as a thief.Dickens though always has another objective. After describing the worst social conditions possible in Victorian England, he manages to salvage his main characters, here two orphans, with some kind of artificial confession, birth certificates, medallions, etc., that provides these orphans with a pedigree that has no reason to blush or shrink away in front of the decent society of Queen Victoria who requires you to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth.This particular adaptation by the BBC does not frustrate your expectations that were great at the beginning. The villains are real villains. The do-gooders are real selfless souls, the values of society are enhanced and advocated as best. The chief-thief is de-semitized and reduced to what he is a thief leading children into crime. And the children are marvelously well directed. Oliver Twist is a darling that manages some rather cold and distant attitude in situations that would have made many more cry like wimps.Jacques COULARDEAU

awitham68 The BBC really know how to 'do' Dickens.From Dudley Simpson's haunting title music to Eric Porter's sinister Fagin, this is truest adaptation of the book that I know.The production values are spot-on, capturing the filth and seediness of Dickens' London. Michael Attwell is the most menacing of Bill Sykes and Ben Rodska makes Oliver innocent without being too goody-goody.If that were not enough, the length of the production (6 hours) means that, for once, the sub-plots are included and the main plots are laid out as Dickens wrote them.If 6 hours is too long then David Lean still represents the safest bet but, for the purist, this will probably never be improved upon.