“Please Sir, I want some more” is among the most famous lines in English literature, and its power is undiminished in this new recording of Oliver Twist featuring an all-star cast and produced by Sam Mendes. It begins as a baby is born in a workhouse to an unmarried woman who dies shortly after, leaving the orphaned child to be named by Mr Bumble (Adeel Akhtar).
Nine years later, and we find Oliver (Emilio Villa-Muhammad) being goaded by the other orphans to ask for a second helping of gruel on his birthday. His request is deemed so shocking that he is cast out and sent to live with a local undertaker, who makes him sleep among the coffins and gives him the dog’s leftovers for his supper. Oliver runs away, walking 70 miles to London, though when he arrives his problems continue as he falls in with a gang of thieves, led by the Artful Dodger (Elijah Wolf).
Dickens’s story is necessarily streamlined here, with subplots discarded and Oliver’s journey to London hastened so we are swiftly introduced to the novel’s gallery of villains and ne’er-do-wells. Brian Cox and Daniel Kaluuya are terrific as Fagin and Bill Sikes respectively, and Derry Girls’ Nicola Coughlan brims with warmth as the doomed Nancy. The production brings Dickens’s London to life through a cinematic sound palette featuring bustling streets, the clatter of horses’ hooves and the gentle chime of a grandfather clock in the home of Mr Brownlow who, in vowing to look after Oliver, declares: “I will no longer make a coffin of my heart.”
• Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens is available via Audible Studios, 3hr 38min.
Further listening
The Christmas Bookshop
Jenny Colgan, Hachette Audio, 11hr 24min
Eilidh Beaton narrates this feelgood festive tale in which a young woman tries to reverse the fortunes of a failing Edinburgh bookshop.
A Boy Called Christmas
Matt Haig, Canongate, 4hr 32min
A Finnish boy called Nikolas goes in search of his father in the mythical land of Elfhelm, home to elves, reindeer and a hungry troll, in this winter heart-warmer. Stephen Fry reads.
