CS Weekly Archive > DVD of the Day > 09/01/06

Great Expectations

by jason davis

The Charles Dickens Collection, Vol. 2

Charles Dickens

The Old Curiousity Shop (1979)

Dramatized by William Trevor

Dombey and Son (1983)

Dramatized by James Andrew Hall

The Pickwick Papers (1985)

Dramatized by Jack Davies

David Copperfield (1999)

Screenplay by Adrian Hodges

Disenfranchised children, mysterious benefactors, and grotesque ghouls abound in a second anthology of BBC adaptations from serial novelist Charles Dickens' works.  Replete with happy coincidences, unexpected relationships, and no shortage of social commentary, the three earlier adaptations come courtesy of the BBC's Classic Serial, wherein literary works were dramatized in 30-minute segments across several subsequent Sundays.  Mimicking the incremental publication of the author's books in various periodicals, this format was an ideal venue in which to present intricately drawn stories with built-in cliffhangers and decade-spanning narratives.  From the episodic meanderings of The Pickwick Papers, energized by the arrival of the writer's first signature character, Sam Weller (Phil Daniels), to the stoic title character of Dombey and Son, Dickens' trademark exaggerated characters are brought to life by dramatists with an affinity for the underlying literary material.  The 1999 adaptation of David Copperfield, co-produced by WGBH in Boston, is a precursor to last year's Peabody Award-winning Bleak House, with its dynamic take on Dickens' semi-autobiographical account of the eponymous character's (Daniel Radcliffe) rise from an abused stepchild to a notable author.  Actor Simon Callow's performance of a Dickens reading from Pickwick stands alongside a short documentary on David Copperfield as informative supplements geared to appreciating the novelist's life and prose.

The Charles Dickens Collection, Vol. 2

BBC Home Video
Unrated; ~18 hours

Buy it now

Jason Davis is the DVD Manager for CS Weekly, a contributing editor for Creative Screenwriting Magazine, and writes "TV Wasteland" for Cinescape.com. He lives and writes in Burbank.

The Charles Dickens Collection, Vol. 2 courtesy BBC Home Video

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