oliver twist?

[capricciosababs]

saw first episode on tv last night, loved it, apart from the too modern music it didnt go with the story! peters still away for firm so shall watch part two tonight bbc one!

[Kalikareem]

Well it's not what I was expecting to be honest,although I was looking forward to the series starting...Like you Babs I was unsure about the modern music,and I am so used to seeing a sly,shifty skinny Fagin I was shocked to see the 'chunky' Tim Spall taking the prt,also every Oliver I have seen has had a mass of blonde curls,and Bill Sykes has always been portayed by a big actor,the Bill last night looked decidedly skinny....Maybe the two roles of Bill Sykes and Fagin got mixed up....

[jan]

I shall be watching part two tonight - enjoyed the first part.

[Carole]

I missed it :(

Carole

[Princess Leia]

poo pooo poooooo pooooooo

Loved loved loved last night, but tonight for some reason I was convinced it was on at 9pm so missed it :(

[Carole]

Where did all that dialogue come from? Definately not Mr Dickens! :eeeek:

Carole

[Lucia]

I watched 22 mins of the first episode of what seemed to be a whistle-stop tour through Oliver Twist complete with modern music and 'innovative' dialogue - I switched off after someone said that something might 'kick-off' - whoever is responsible for this nonsense should be locked in a room furnished with nothing except the collected novels of Charles Dickens and DVD's of the excellent adaptations of them which the BBC used to do!
Gaaaarrrggggghhhhh! :(

[Leah]

Oh :( Not so sorry I missed it now :(

[Carole]

ITV are doing The Old Curiousity Shop as their Dickensian Christmas offering - as it's got Derek Jacobi in it, I hope it will be a cut above Oliver Twist.

I remember Derek Jacobi's Little Dorrit very well - it was wonderful.

Carole

.... I just wondered if I should re-phrase that last sentance, then I thought ... nah!

[Leah]

ITV are doing The Old Curiousity Shop as their Dickensian Christmas offering - as it's got Derek Jacobi in it, I hope it will be a cut above Oliver Twist.

I remember Derek Jacobi's Little Dorrit very well - it was wonderful.

Carole

.... I just wondered if I should re-phrase that last sentance, then I thought ... nah!

:angelic:catroofle::catroofle::catroofle:

[Lucia]

ITV are doing The Old Curiousity Shop as their Dickensian Christmas offering - as it's got Derek Jacobi in it, I hope it will be a cut above Oliver Twist.

I remember Derek Jacobi's Little Dorrit very well - it was wonderful.

Carole

.... I just wondered if I should re-phrase that last sentance, then I thought ... nah!

Howling with laughter - well, while I can't claim to have close enough to Mr Jacobi to experience his Little Dorrit, I always expect great things of him because he is a proper act-or - and he'll have to be good to make up for the bl**dy intrusive and mood-breaking ITV adverts! :santa:

[Joanne]

I'm probably about to be lynched, but I just can't get away with Charles Dickens at all. How depressing and how many life changing unfortunate coincidences can one person have in a life time. Give me a bit of bawdy Chaucer any day.

[Carole]

Chaucer!!!! two of what should have been the best years of my life were spoilt by triple English lessons spent translating The Bl**dy Knight's Blasted Tale and writing essays comparing the characters of Palamon and Arcite (they didn't have any individual character) :lol:

Carole

[louise]

Best actor was Ezekiel the crow... and I loved the teeth... everyones teeth were thoroughly rotten as they should have been..... I expected Tim Spall to break into If I was a rich man yabba dabba dabbba dabba dabba dabba dabba doo......

[Joanne]

Chaucer!!!! two of what should have been the best years of my life were spoilt by triple English lessons spent translating The Bl**dy Knight's Blasted Tale and writing essays comparing the characters of Palamon and Arcite (they didn't have any individual character) :lol:

Carole

LOL He's funny!

[Lucia]

I'm with Caro on this one, Pips - I'll draw a veil over my dismal attempts to come to grips with Chaucer - little did I know as a slip of a girl that I would grow up to become the Wife of Bath(e)! :catwink:

I always liked old Dickens because he was such a perceptive social historian as well as (to me) an entertaining novelist - although I couldn't ever get to grips with 'Bleak House' until the superb BBC serialisation of it!:santa:

[Carole]

LOL He's funny!


Not when he wrote The Knight's Tale!

I still think Dickens is greatly overated - and to argue the point think Trollope was a better social historian, I'm sure Victorian England wasn't quite a weird as Dickens made it out to be. Dickens couldn't portray women, they are either daft, totally over the top mad old bats or characterless simpering girls (I know that's not totally true, but near enough).

I do wish Margaret Oliphant was better known, I always thought she was more entertaining tham Mrs Gaskell, she has some wonderful heroines and lots of truly useless men in her novels (it reflected her own life) and they would make great TV adaptations.

Carole

[Leah]

Mustn't forget that Dickens wrote serialisations for magazines, and was literally paid by the word [or chapter at least] which is why some of them seem so long winded.He was hamming like mad to appeal to as many people as possible.I think his best work was the simplest....Oliver Twist and Great Expectations rather than some of the 'weightier' volumes. Similarly loved George Elliot 'Silas Marner' so much more that her other novels, just so beautifully and simply written :) Chaucer, I am so with Carol and Chris on this one....:( The only reference to Chaucer I've ever enjoyed was in the spectacularly UN literary movie 'A knight's Tale' with Heath Ledger and Rufus Sewell! Then again it took an animated Ray Winstone and a ton of CGI Animation before I could enjoy anything relating to Beowulf either :)

[capricciosababs]

missed it last two nights, what with peter away and cats getting me up at five am and then cindiis situation, maybe catch it up last tv episode tonight? ps hope something is on at christmas still not seen the lion king video tape we got two years ago !

[Carole]

Mustn't forget that Dickens wrote serialisations for magazines, and was literally paid by the word [or chapter at least] which is why some of them seem so long winded.He was hamming like mad to appeal to as many people as possible.I think his best work was the simplest....Oliver Twist and Great Expectations rather than some of the 'weightier' volumes. Similarly loved George Elliot 'Silas Marner' so much more that her other novels, just so beautifully and simply written :)


A lot of the novels took at least a year to serialise - if you can find them now the best way to read Victorian novels is in the serialised form in magazines like Dicken's own Household Words (where Cranford first appeared) or the classy Cornhill Magazine - you also get the benefit of the very best work of the Victorian illustrators many of whom went on to be highly succesful artists who provided an illustration a month but a lot of the time they had no idea how the story would pan out and just had to work with the instalment they were given.

Carole