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Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist cast members
  • Posted at 3:20pm
  • 13 December 2007
  • by AlisonGraham-RT
  • 2 comments

It's the week before Christmas, when the television channels are doing some last-minute dusting and a bit of light housework, airing the bedding and getting ready for an influx of guests in advance of the busiest period of the TV year. Which is a roundabout way of saying that, television-wise, there isn't an awful lot happening.

But BBC1 has broken into its special box of chocolates early to bring us Oliver Twist (nightly from Tuesday). It's an adaptation of the Dickens classic by EastEnders writer Sarah Phelps. You can tell Phelps is perfectly at home with the subject matter, as Oliver Twist is a bit like EastEnders, but with better clothes. It's packed with familiar Easties-ish archetypes - cheery villains, horrible villains, murder, domestic abuse, middle-class rotters and that grim determination to look on the bright side.

My problem with it, though, is overfamiliarity, which isn't necessarily Oliver Twist's fault. But surely everyone knows the story of the little orphan boy who dared to ask for more. Even if you've never read the book, you'll know the Lionel Bart musical.

Indeed, "You've Got to Pick a Pocket or Two" haunted my viewing whenever we visited Fagin (Timothy Spall) and his thieves in their lair. Or whenever we focused on Nancy I half-expected Sophie Okonedo, who plays the doomed tart with a heart of gold, to burst into "As Long as He Needs Me" after she's been given a particularly unpleasant thumping by her "boyfriend" Bill Sikes (Tom Hardy).

Which makes me wonder if we actually need a new adaptation of such a well-loved, well-known tale. I felt the same way while watching The Old Curiosity Shop, one of ITV1's big Christmas dramas. Frankly, why bother?

*

Elsewhere, we come to the end of the current series of Spooks (Tuesday, BBC1) and CSI: Miami (Tuesday, Five). The latter has become increasingly ridiculous and ends on a suitably overblown note, as the absurd Horatio Caine (David Caruso) stands on a roof, hands on hips and looking smug, for no reason whatsoever.

Spooks, on the other hand, has been on a real high this series (its sixth). Though the running story about Iran's nuclear capability was a bit of a dud as it quickly ran out of steam, incidental plots involving the team of spies have been gripping. The episode where Ros (Hermione Norris) apparently died was a corker, while Tuesday's conclusion is almost unbearably tense and horribly disturbing. A member of the team is kidnapped (remember, Spooks has a very high staff turnover) and subjected to a dreadful ordeal. It's grim, but gripping.

**

Alison Graham is TV editor of Radio Times.

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Comments

  • Posted on 22 December 2007
  • at 11:25pm
  • by KittyL
CSI:Miami just gets cheesier every season. All we ever seem to get now are shots of the Sunglasses of Justice pouting and preening, red hair wafting in the tropical breeze as he endeavours to save yet another small child/mother of small child/small child's kitten. Thank god for CSI:Vegas.Spooks has indeed been stupendously good this season. I cant bear the thought of Ros not being in the show anymore. Her 'bad smell under her nose' type of acting was superb. Worryingly though, the Spooks appear to be dropping like flies at the moment. We're going to end up with the doorman and the cleaning lady left at Thames House, if this carries on.
  • Posted on 22 December 2007
  • at 8:32pm
  • by albion71

I think the problem with the latest adaptation of Oliver Twist was not over-familiarity, it was unnecessary change. I would have sat much more happily through the show if it had lived up to the drive of the opening episode, which remained largely faithful to the book. The look, the actors and, particularly, the music all conspired to make it gripping. Such a familiar tale could well have been run, in faithful glory, over several more episodes.

Then came the other episodes and all was lost: empathy, between and for the characters; the menace of Bill Sikes (despite the best efforts of Tom Hardy); the relationship between Fagin and Oliver; the cosy equanimity and hope of Brownlow; the mystery of Monks. This could have been splendid, and the first hour was just that, but what a waste.

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