We’ll always want
Charles Dickens died 150 years ago but, as MARION McMULLEN explains, his talent for words continues to inspire movies and TV
NATURAL-BORN storyteller Charles Dickens wrote about pickpockets, waifs, orphans, convicts and exposed the seedy side of Victorian life. He once said: “I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my resources and the difficulty of my life. I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a vagabond.”
The prolific writer, responsible for classics such as Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and A Christmas Carol, suffered a stroke while dining at home and passed away 150 years ago on June 9, 1870, at the age of 58. Queen Victoria wrote in her diary a few days following his death, “He had a large loving mind and the strongest sympathy with the poorer classes. He felt sure a better felling, and much greater union of classes, would take place in time. And I pray earnestly it might”. Dickens’ father ended up in debtors’ prison and the boy was working in a factory when he was 12 to make ends meet, but his fortunes changed when he began writing. He introduced words like dustbin, butterfingers, the creeps and flummox into the English language, and was the creator of the cliffhanger ending. Many of his novels began life in magazines with new chapters being printed each edition.
He tempted readers to buy the next issue by ending each chapter with a cliffhanger moment. This technique led to eager American readers flocking to the dock of New York harbour in 1841 to see if any passengers disembarking from Europe could tell them the ending of The Old Curiosity Shop and Nell’s fate.
It is not surprising his strong storylines have inspired many TV and film adaptations. Child star Dickie Moore played orphan Oliver Twist in 1933 with newspaper adverts in New York declaring it “an exciting story of yesterday, with the vivid tempo of today and the dramatic appeal of all time!”
A spate of Dickens movies followed through the 1930s that included Great Expectations in 1934, with Jane Wyatt as heartbreaker Estella, while in 1935 there was The Personal History, Adventures, Experience & Observation of David Copperfield The Younger with a cast featuring Lionel Barrymore and Basil Rathbone, The Mystery of Edwin Drood with Claude Rains and A Tale Of Two Cities starring Ronald Colman, who even shaved off his trademark moustache to play Sydney Carton. A Christmas Carol in 1938 saw Reginald Owen as Ebenezer Scrooge and the famous miser has been played over the years by everyone from Sir Michael Caine and Sir Patrick Stewart to Albert Finney and Jim Carrey. British character actor Alastair Sim famously played the role in the 1951 movie Scrooge and returned to it again for the 1977 animated version of A Christmas Carol. A young John Mills and Jean Simmons starred as Pip and Estella in film director David Lean’s 1946 version of Great Expectations and Jean Simmons went on to play the abandoned bride Miss Havisham in the 1989 TV series. A Tale Of Two Cities in 1958 saw Dirk Bogarde declaring “It is a far far better thing I do than I have ever done” as Sydney Carton, while Christopher Lee played the arrogant Marquis St Evremonde in the story set against the backdrop of the French Revolution.
Dickens was given a musical twist in 1968 with the big screen version of Lionel Bart’s stage hit Oliver! It saw Ron Moody reprise his scene-stealing role as Fagin and Mark Lester as the orphan who dared to ask “Please sir, may I have some more?”
Director Carol Reed said they had to ditch a lot of the sub-plot in Dickens’ story to make it work as a movie, adding: “I never visualised Oliver! as a show dominated by a single star. In fact, there are seven very good parts.” Robert Lindsay played Fagin in the HTV mini-series adapted by Boys From The Blackstuff writer Alan Bleasdale in 1999 with Andy Serkis as Bill Sikes.
1999 also saw a new version of Great Expectations on TV, with Justine Waddell as Estella, Charlotte Rampling as Miss Havisham and Ioan Gruffudd as Pip in the BBC special.
That same year saw Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe land his first TV role starring alongside Bob Hoskins in the BBC’s series of David Copperfield with a cast that boasted Dame Maggie Smith, Pauline Quirke and Sir Ian McKellen. It is said when Harry Potter director Chris Columbus was asked what he was looking for to play his boy wizard star for the movie he showed them a clip of Daniel from the show. Dickens wrote in David Copperfield: “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show” and his pages have shown us plenty over the years.