The Many Adventures of Oliver Twist

The Many Adventures of Oliver Twist

In 1898 Mr Bumble the Beadle became the first screen adaptation of Dickens followed in 1909 by the silent film version of Oliver Twist. Audiences were already so familiar with Dickens’s stories they could easily understand them, even without dialogue.

Theatre continued to play its part, with actors like Bransby Williams impersonating Dickens and bringing his characters, such as Fagin and Scrooge, to life on stage. These performances ignited Charlie Chaplin’s life-long love of Dickens, in particular Oliver Twist, influencing his own on screen lost child persona.

Between the two World Wars, stage productions of Dickens declined, but his characters and stories travelled from page and stage to radio, talking pictures and television. Television allowed for faithful, episodic renditions of Dickens’s work, the modern-day equivalent of their original serialised publication. In the 1960s, stage and screen combined as Lionel Bart’s musical adaptation Oliver! was then also adapted into a film, cementing the story’s place in popular culture.