Charles Dickens - Classic Or Dud?

The Infant Phenomenon has arrived!

Also, this Alex Jennings audiobook is really a cut above.

I've just been listening to Jennings do Susan Cooper's "Over Sea and Under Stone" and haven't thought much of either the book or the narrator, i'm not sure how to apportion the blame for that.

it's been putting me off wastng an Audible credit on the complete Barchester Chronicles which he reads together with the unimpeachable Anna Massey - but it sounds like he is good with 19th century prose?

That’s a BBC adaptation, but looks good.

He also did the audiobook of Claire Tomalin’s Dickens biography, I just noticed.

Oh hi, found a good batch of Dickens audiobooks that are public domain, for any Bad Boffin miser types that may be out there.

Here

You can also stream from some of the usual suspects.

I'm sure I have mentioned this elsewhere on ILX but I can't find the post currently so I may as well give it another plug here -

depending on
(1) your appetite to spend money on what is undoubtedly a pretty niche streaming service; and
(2) your tolerance for unvarnished straight readings of the classics (usually by the standard crew of minor character actors / RSC types (Anton Lesser, Juliet Stevenson Neville Jason, David Timson, Emma Fielding, Martin Jarvis etc feature heavily) but with occasional appearances from a "star turn": your Derek Jacobis, your Michael Sheens and so on))

...then you may be interested in the Naxos Spoken Word Library subscription service.
https://www.naxosspokenwordlibrary.com/home.asp

rather than paying for each book individually your subscription price gets you access to the catalogue. the catalogue is deep.
https://naxosaudiobooks.com/category/products/

it looks pretty unwieldy and old internet to start with but it's pretty easy to use. they have an app and everything.

there is a an awful lot of Dickens, just to stay broadly on topic.

Ha, thanks, I recognize all of those names.

Just watched David Lean’s Oliver Twist for the first time, maybe I should finally get around to reading the book.

the film's good, love the depiction of Victorian London skyline. the book is more violent, specifically Nancy and Bill.

Thanks. I hadn’t quite realized that he directed Great Expectations BEFORE Oliver Twist.

his GE is the best GE also, the miss havisham death scene adds things that weren't in the book iirc - using the curtain as a fire blanket and letting the light in for the first time since the failed wedding (in the book it's the table cloth)

Good point.

The novel has some secret that it is added at the end as almost an afterthought.
Estella is Magwitch’s daughter

Similar kind of secret in Nicholas Nickleby.
Smike is Ralph Nickleby’s son

That Naxos thing actually makes a lot of sense to me. Not going to sign up myself this very second though.

Pretty happy with the three versions of Nicholas Nickleby I have access to at the moment by Alex Jennings, Simon Vance and Mil Nicholson.

Do you guys know the name of Dickens’s doctor?

Your list leaves out Sean Barrett and Frederick Davidson aka David Case.

The latter who eventually lost his voice because…well you can read about it or just guess.

He might be pre-Naxos though

Love this from Robert Newton’s Wikipedia page:
Known for his hard-living lifestyle, he was cited as a role model by the actor Oliver Reed and the Who's drummer Keith Moon.

Especially since both he and Oliver Reed played Bill Sikes.

Trying to find the Morbius post where he says Lean’s film of Oliver Twist is much better than Dicken’s novel. Can’t really opine not having read the novel (yet), much as I’d like to.

Watching GE again for the first time in ages.

Feel like everything about it is great, except for John Mills that is.

Alec Guinness is awesome though

Don’t care about Valerie Hobson as grown Estella. Much prefer the younger version played by Jean Simmons which was her breakout, star-making role. Don’t know what happened to the young Pip actor, Anthony Wager, who I also liked.

Jean Simmons played Miss Havisham in a later version!

i feel exactly the same about Valerie Hobson

Seems like Jean Simmons’s next role but one was in Black Narcissus!

i feel exactly the same about Valerie Hobson

Seems Valerie Hobson was also in the 1934 version but her scenes were cut.

I just found out today that Francis L. Sullivan was in it too, also playing Mr. Jaggers!

He’s the only actor from GE also in Lean’s OT, although Kay Walsh who played Nancy, at the time Lean’s wife, worked on both in a writing capacity.

Unless I missed something.

Finlay Currie’s Magwitch just dropped in from NSW it’s like a…um,er… breath of fresh air.

Wonder if I am wrong to assume that this stuff was on the telly all the time when you were coming up.

Here’s something else interesting: Martita Hunt and Alec Guinness had originally played their roles a in stage adaption by Guinness which inspired David Lean to make the movie.

Torin Thatcher’s Bentley Drummle also steals every scene he is in.

Valerie Hobson also plays Molly, uncredited.

Ha, I like the way IMDb mentions this.

They also put forward some alleged other casting choices for grownup Estella but I haven’t seen them elsewhere.

Hobson is too bland, not cruel enough i think

the film as a whole is wonderfully dreamlike in places

Yes to both.

Hobson didn’t like her own performance either and had major issues with Lean’s direction.

Also TIL that Chad is the UK version of Kilroy.

And that there was a pre-Code US version of Oliver Twist starring Dickie Moore.

And that Carol Reed was Oliver Reed’s uncle.

lol at this from Wikipedia:

but from the mid-1970s his alcoholism began affecting his career, with the adding: "Reed had assumed 's mantle as Britain's thirstiest thespian".

Aargh, vanishing links. Need to c+p from different app, sorry.