With a new TV version of The Artful Dodger arriving on Disney+ to praise for its energy and inventiveness, we thought we’d have a look at what else from the prodigious catalogue of adapted works of Charles Dickens is available on your telly. After all, you have some spare time coming up, right?
Great Expectations, now and then
This year’s telling of Great Expectations (on Disney+) by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders) has had a torrid time with the critics. The Times declared it “the death of period drama”. Ouch. But not to worry: Prime Video has David Lean’s 1946 Great Expectations, which the British Film Institute placed fifth on its list of greatest British films. When it was re-released in 2007, the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw deemed it “unmissable”, and Empire magazine called it “definitive”. “If you want to see how Dickens anticipated the cinema,” wrote Philip French in the Observer, “consider how little had to be done to bring the graveyard meeting between Pip and Magwitch to the screen.”
The Personal History of David Copperfield
Armando Iannucci’s 2019 take on David Copperfield is as idiosyncratic as you’d expect. It employs such un-Dickensian devices as split screens and sped-up chase scenes and is – by general, if not universal agreement – an exuberant and colourful work of cinema. The presence of Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) in the titular role helped it break through to audiences in Asia: the Hindustan Times praised Patel as “quite magical in the role, buoyant but always believable”, and noted that the film’s cast “is filled with black, brown and Asian faces”. The film is still not available as subscriber fare, but can be rented for $5.99 at the usual places: iTunes, Google Play, AroVision and Academy on Demand.
The Davies versions
Before he came up with Sanditon, the Welsh screenwriter Andrew Davies turned out two Dickens adaptations for the BBC: Bleak House in 2005 and Little Dorrit in 2008. Bleak House won a shower of awards and nominations for its cast, which includes Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock, Anna Maxwell Martin as Esther, Charles Dance as Mr Tulkinghorn and Timothy West as Sir Leicester Dedlock. Three years later, Little Dorrit scooped a clutch of Primetime Emmy awards, including Best Miniseries, and provided a breakout role for a young Claire Foy (The Crown) as Amy. They’re both available to watch on TVNZ+.
Nicholas Nickleby
Long before Sons of Anarchy, Charlie Hunnam played the title role in Douglas McGrath’s 2002 film version of Nicholas Nickleby. Roger Ebert described the film as “jolly and exciting and brimming with life, and wonderfully well-acted” and noted that although McGrath had done “some serious pruning” on Dickens’ original serial, it was more approachable than the, gulp, nine-hour version by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Now on Prime Video.
Dodger
That new The Artful Dodger series on Disney+ is all a bit Guy Ritchie, despite being set in Australia. For a family-friendlier option about the same character, TVNZ+ has the 10 episodes of the first season of the BBC kids’ show. It’s a prequel to Oliver Twist that acts as an origin story for the pickpocket rascal the Artful Dodger. Christopher Eccleston plays Fagin, with Julian Barratt (The Mighty Boosh), Alexei Sayle and Frances Barber among the grown-ups on the mean (but not too mean) streets of Victorian London. A second series is in the offing.
Because it’s that time of year...
According to the Rotten Tomatoes reviewer consensus, The Muppet Christmas Carol “may not be the finest version of Charles Dickens’ tale to grace the screen”, but it is “funny and heartwarming, and serves as a good introduction to the story for young viewers”. Like other Muppet content, it’s there to watch on Disney+.
A much earlier version of A Christmas Carol is available on Prime Video. The 1935 film of the story, featuring music-hall star Seymour Hicks and originally released as Scrooge, was unavailable for many years, but was re-released in a pretty good colourised version (which you can also find on YouTube). Then there’s the 2022 TV movie adaptation, Christmas Carole, which was hailed by the Guardian’s Lucy Mangan as “a glorious, modern retelling” in a five-star review. There for you on Neon.
