Oliver Twist Without Coincidences?

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens is a book I love but I typically don’t love adaptations of it. The shorter ones, such as the musical Oliver! or the 2005 movie, cut the mysterious Monks, one of my favorite villains in the story.^[1]For the record, that’s not a universal taste. Some critics dislike the melodramatic Monks and prefer the book’s more naturalistic villains like Bill Sikes. What can I say? To each their … Continue reading And even the adaptations that retain the character, such as the 1948 and 1982 films, don’t really do him justice.^[2]I should say the 1948 Oliver Twist is a great movie and a great adaptation in many ways. (It was directed by David Lean, who also did the 1946 Great Expectations.) But the parts with Monks are easily … Continue reading A rare adaptation that really develops Monks though is the 1999 miniseries written by Alan Bleasdale and directed by Renny Rye. Like many another Oliver Twist, this one begins with the highly dramatic scene of his heavily pregnant mother (Sophia Myles) making a terrible journey on foot through the rain, giving birth to him in a workhouse and dying.^[3]Dickens fans may be interested to know that Myles also played Kate Nickleby in a miniseries adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby. I felt she lacked the necessary warmth for the character there but … Continue reading Unlike other Oliver Twists though, this one immediately goes back in time to show us the relationship between her and Oliver’s father (Tim Dutton) and why Monks (Marc Warren) is obsessed with ruining the poor orphan. The fact that it’s unlike other versions doesn’t mean it’s original to this one. While the flashback, which takes up most of the first episode, makes some changes to the book’s backstory for the series’ own dramatic purposes, it’s pretty much the same as what Dickens revealed in the final section of Oliver Twist. In fact, I’m impressed by how many details from the book it includes.

As a result of showing this backstory rather than just telling us about it, Monks’s evil mother (frequent Bleasdale collaborator Lindsay Duncan), an intriguing offstage character in the book, cuts a much more prominent figure in the miniseries. She becomes a great hissable villain.

A downside of showing the backstory right off the bat is that Monks can’t be mysterious when we know all about him. To keep him from becoming boring, the miniseries makes him a much more sympathetic villain. I don’t entirely dislike that idea as I’d contend there was always a hint of tragedy in Monks and his relationships with his parents, but I feel like the series goes a bit too far. Monks’s mother, when trying to manipulate him, tells her son that she knows he really enjoys killing things and is in denial about it. But we never get any indication that she’s telling the truth. Whenever Monks has the opportunity to kill anyone, he comes across as horrified by the prospect.^[4]He didn’t want to kill Oliver in the book either but that wasn’t necessarily supposed to make him sympathetic. It might have been better if we really did feel like he has this sadistic side that he’s desperately suppressing. As it is, it’s hard to tell why his father considered him such a disgrace. Was it just because of his Frankenstein-ian appearance?^[5]I know Frankenstein is the name of the scientist, not the monster but Frankenstein’s-monster-ian doesn’t sound right and, anyway, as Frankenstein’s “child” the monster … Continue reading That would make the father’s motivations less sympathetic than Dickens intended them to be though to be sure, the father was never supposed to be a perfect character.

An interesting side effect of restructuring the story is that it immediately establishes Oliver Twist as a melodrama. In the novel, we begin with the institutional evil of the workhouse and then move on to the criminal evil of Fagin’s gang before being introduced to the melodramatic evil of Monks. You could argue that this is an improvement on the source material and that it’s better to establish a melodramatic tone right off the bat so that readers or viewers aren’t too thrown when it develops later. You could also argue that the book had an interesting structure and that this messes it up. I guess I don’t have a strong opinion either way.

The characters who I feel are the least well adapted are John Dawkins AKA the Artful Dodger (Alex Crowley) and Charley Bates (Roland Manookian) which is odd since the miniseries actually avoids my pet peeve about the Dodger in adaptations and even addresses a problem I have with Charley Bates in the book. It annoys me that adaptations usually make the Artful Dodger a sympathetic figure. Do none of them remember what a jerk he was in the book?^[6]I can kind of understand why they feel the need to do this with Fagin, given the antisemitic stereotypes he embodies. (In some cases, this is because they’re combining him with Charley Bates who somewhat randomly redeems himself at the end of the story.) The 1999 miniseries, if anything, goes in the opposite direction, making the character even more of a villain. But it’s hard for me to appreciate this when the actors for both the Dodger and Charley look far too old for their roles. In the book, they’re foils for Oliver and, naturally, they’re around his age. Here a generous interpretation is that they’re meant to be teenagers but look like they’re in their thirties. As I mentioned, in the book, Charley Bates redeemed himself in the end. According to what I’ve read, Dickens didn’t originally intend this but a friend of his really loved the character and begged Dickens to give him a happy ending.^[7]It’s possible that the reason adaptations tend to portray the Artful Dodger and his fellow juvenile pickpockets more sympathetically than Dickens did is that they see them as appealing, … Continue reading Reading the book, it’s pretty obvious that the author’s plans for the character changed while he was writing. The miniseries has Charley show signs of conscience much earlier and more dramatically than the book does. Technically, this is an improvement…but I can’t quite say I like it. I’m attached to the Charley Bates from the book and the character in the miniseries just doesn’t feel like him. To a lesser extent, the same can be said of the Artful Dodger though there I can say it’s mostly because of the age thing.

Other than that, my least favorite bit of casting is David Ross as Mr. Bumble. He just isn’t pompous and intimidating enough to be the character. It’s true that Mr. Bumble is supposed to end up being overawed by his eventual wife (Julie Walters) but it shouldn’t be obvious from the start.

I’ve got to give the miniseries points for including Mr. Losberne (David Bark-Jones), one of my favorite good guys from the book who often gets cut by adaptations. However, I then have to take those points away again for the miniseries combining him with Rose (Keira Knightley)’s obligatory love interest, Harry Maylie, one of my least favorite good guys from the book who often gets cut by adaptations. Actually, he ends up not being much like either character. Since, like many another Oliver Twist, this one cuts the character of Mrs. Maylie, most of Losberne’s best lines from the book wouldn’t have worked here. Oh well.

In general, though, the casting and characterizations for this miniseries are excellent. Andy Serkis (who played Rigaud in the 2008 Little Dorrit), Emily Woof and Robert Lindsay are great as the iconic trio of Bill Sikes, Nancy and Fagin. I especially like the deadpan, for lack of a better description, way Lindsay delivers his character’s groveling, wheedling lines. You get the impression this is a Fagin who is always calculating-until his last scene when he goes mad.

Michael Kitchen is also great as Mr. Brownlow. Because of the way the story has been restructured, he comes across as almost as much a protagonist as Oliver or Nancy. Kitchen and Bleasdale make him quite compelling, and they do this not by adding to the character but by expanding on things at which Dickens only hinted. I’m not sure if it was such a good idea though to give him a history of taking in homeless boys who then took advantage of and stole from him long before he met Oliver. I understand the miniseries is trying to establish that, in the book’s words, Mr. Brownlow “(has) been deceived before in the objects whom (he has) endeavored to benefit” but having his charity repeatedly take that specific form is weird.

As Oliver Twist himself, young Sam Smith perfectly embodies Dickens’s saintly protagonist. I appreciate that unlike many other adaptations, such as the musical, the 1997 movie and the 2007 miniseries, this one keeps Oliver’s distaste for theft, however unrealistic it might be for someone from his background and in his desperate circumstances.

And I love that this miniseries includes the comical manservants, Giles (Sam Kelly) and Brittles (Morgan Jones.) They typically don’t make the cut.

Also included is the pedlar (Alan Pentony) who innocently offers to demonstrate his stain removal product on Sikes’s bloodstained hat. It’s details like that which make the villain’s guilty flight at the climax so memorable.

If there’s a major thing about this adaptation that niggles me, besides the things I’ve already mentioned, it’s the way it tries to “fix” the plot of Oliver Twist by removing the incredible coincidences in it. Not only does the reason Dodger brings Oliver to Fagin become that Monks has already hired him to ruin the boy, but the Dodger and Charley specifically try to frame him for stealing from Mr. Brownlow. I know that many readers find Dickens’s use of coincidences to be a weakness but honestly, I feel like making everything intentional on the parts of Monks and Fagin makes the whole thing seem more ridiculous than if it had been the result of a few convenient coincidences. It’s not like Fagin needed the extra motivation to induct a vulnerable child into his gang of pickpockets. It’s what he does anyway. And the really weird thing is the miniseries actually adds a coincidence to the story by having Charley Bates know Mr. Brownlow from before he ever met Oliver Twist. (Remember what I mentioned about this version of Brownlow having taken a number of homeless boys into his house in the past?) So are coincidences a flaw or not? Make up your mind!^[8]Why don’t Dickens’s coincidences bother me in the book? I once heard animator Glen Keane say in an interview that his idea of a great story is something really impossible. I’d agree … Continue reading

While I can’t really recommend this Oliver Twist as an introduction to the source material, frankly, that’s true of most adaptations of this particular book.^[9]My favorite is actually a radio dramatization from 2012. I enjoy the 1999 miniseries as an homage to the original novel. The changes it makes to the story and characters aren’t necessarily bigger than the changes that adaptations usually make, and they happen to irritate me less. This Oliver Twist does manage to nail the book’s horrifying yet humorous tone. I’ll close by mentioning something I particularly admire. A quirk of the novel is that the problem of Oliver’s safety is pretty much wrapped up two thirds of the way through it. After that, the story becomes more about Nancy and about revealing the mystery of Oliver’s birth. Many adaptations, on the other hand, keep the protagonist in Bill Sikes’s clutches until the very end to avoid the audience losing interest. The 1999 miniseries manage to involve Oliver more in the climax without altering the plot quite so much. Please, adapters, I want some more of that.