Charles Dickens Collection (1999)

DAVID COPPERFIELD: The classic David Copperfield was not just Charles Dickens' favorite work. It has been the most popular of his books since it was first published 150 years ago. Micawber, Peggotty, Betsey Trotwood, Uriah Heep, Mr. Creakle, Mrs. Crupp, and Mr. Dick... never were so many of Dickens' famous and vest-loved characters gathered together in just one of his works.

They are all brought to life by a world-class cast including Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone), Oscar-winner Maggie Smith (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie), Bob Hoskins (Hook), Nicholas Lyndhurst (Bullshot) and Pauline Quirke (The Elephant Man) in this sparkling adaptation.

The most autobiographical of Dickens' work, David Copperfield often echoes the writer's own life. It tells a moving story of David's journey from birth to maturity, a journey which inextricably links his life with some of Dickens' most colorful and extraordinary families.

OLIVER TWIST: In this extraordinary production, storyteller Alan Bleasdale broadens the scope of Charles Dickens' classic tale of an orphan in 19th century England-- and the characters who influence his destiny. Oliver's mother, Agnes, struggles against the tragic circumstances that ultimately leave Oliver a penniless orphan. At the Parish Workhouse, he is forced by other boys to ask for more food, and as a result, is sold as an apprentice to a miserly undertaker. He runs away and is taken in by master thief Fagin, who is in league with a murderous pair determined to see that Oliver never inherits the fortune he deserves. Life twists and turns again and again for Oliver, landing him in alternately dangerous and hopeful circumstances. Oliver Twist is a drama of dark comedy, astonishing vivacity and soaring imagination, but ultimately, it is a story that celebrates the resilence and triumph of a little boy's spirit.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS: Ioan Gruffudd, Justine Waddell and Charlotte Rampling star in this adaptation of Charles Dickens' enduring classic Great Expectations, the story of a young orphan named Pip who lives with his sister and her blacksmith husband, Joe. One day Pip is sent to play at the residence of Miss Havisham, a frightening, elderly woman who seems locked in the past. She wears ancient bridal attire and never moves from the dusty upper rooms of her home. Miss Havisham's beautiful but contemptuous ward, Estella, makes Pip feel appallingly inferior, creating in him a desire to better himself--changing his life forever. But despite his efforts to improve himself, the frustrated Pip seems destined to remain Joe's apprentice. Until one day a lawyer calls to inform Pip that he has "great expectations" -- Pip is to be released from his apprenticeship and educated in London as a gentleman! The benefactor who has made this life transformation possible, however, wishes to remain anonymous.
 
"[Copperfield] A first-rate realization of Dickens' masterwork."  New York Daily News
"[Oliver] It's a grand cast, grandly shot, snappily written into a more than definitive version of the classic tale."  The Hollywood Reporter
"[Copperfield] Scrumptious...as moving and inspiring as it is beautiful to watch."  Variety
 


Editor's Note

Masterpiece Theatre presents a collection of star-studded BBC mini-series, adapting three of Charles Dickens's best-loved novels. DAVID COPPERFIELD (1999) follows a plucky young scamp's hellish journey from public school to factory job and into adulthood as a mature writer in 19th-century industrial London. Dicken's classic tale of orphan struggle is brought to life in OLIVER TWIST (1999), as the eponymous hero shuffles from the bowels of a horrid workhouse to an even more abusive circumstance as an undertaker's apprentice and finally into the clutches of master thief Fagin. And GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1999) tells the story of Pip, a young boy who endures a difficult childhood to emerge as a young man full of ambition and provided for by a mysterious benefactor who wishes to turn him into a gentleman. These finely tuned adaptations boast impeccable period-piece production design and top British actors Charlotte Rampling, Ian McKellen, Maggie Smith, Bob Hoskins, and HARRY POTTER's Daniel Radcliffe.