Anyone reading the Film thread will know I've been on a Charles Dickens binge recently and I've recently finished watching the following Dickens TV series:
Bleak House (2005) is a really quite long tv series about the book of the same name. Just short of 8 hours over about 14 episodes, this was a wonderful series with wonderful production values.
Some notable names include Gillian Anderson, Charles Dance, Johnny Vegas and many others of variable international fame. It's a legal drama that moves around many other genres to which the central plot is "Who is supposed to inherit the vast wealth of XYZ estate", to which all forms of intrigue are presented via the most wonderful array of truly weird and bizarre characters.
It's also has one of the first depictions of a whodunnit & 'character detective', some argue the first ever and prototype for all future detective fiction.
I really liked this one, it's very Victorian Game of Thrones & Dance's character could well be a prototype for Tywin Lannister.
9/10
Oliver Twist (1999) is much more of a bastardised but in a good way version of this popular tale. They added a massive back story to Oliver's past and tried to make all the plot-holes in the original come together.
And it works quite well. Not so strong on the world famous actors here, but lots of locally famous ones, but Andy Serkis does stand out now as a big name in an early role. He plays the vicious Bill Sykes to perfection. A truly horrifying portrayal and easily one of the stand-out actors here. It also has a relatively minor part of a young Keira Knightly, but she's not in it much, least not enough to comment on.
On the downside, this version almost entirely removes the Artful Dodger from the script, with him also being about 10 years older than Oliver. This is the Dodgerless twist. And Fagan has a really dodgy accent, its supposed to be Check, but it comes across as hasidic jew. Which is all very awkward. If he hadn't referenced Prague I'd never have guessed that was what he was aiming for.
I'm also not a huge fan of Oliver Twist as a story, never have been. I just don't really enjoy watching children in peril and this story really jerks the viewer around IMO with him constantly being saved and then lost again, over and over. And yet I did watch yet another version here, so maybe its something I enjoy torturing myself with?
7/10 but with a caveat that the better actors are very much supporting the weaker ones here. 4 x 1.5 hour episodes.
A Tale of Two Cities (1980) was 8 half hour episodes and didn't star anyone I could write here that would get any recognition from anyone outside the UK, though I found the acting to be pretty good over all.
Because of its era and because of its low budget it didn't really have the production values of the others, and it shows, but not enough to detract from the enjoyment.
Unfortunately this wasn't a story I was greatly interested in and even after just a couple of weeks I've already forgotten most of it. The two cities in question are London and Paris around the time of the French Revolution.
The best thing about it is it's the story that gave us the quote:
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
Which even in a lacklustre show with a story I didn't care for much still managed to tweak my emotion cords when spoken.
6/10
