So here we are then, at the end of Sarah Phelps’ adaptation of Oliver Twist. Already. It seems like only yesterday that the latest serialised version of the Dickens classic started. In fact it was five days ago. Must be Christmas – time always speeds up during this time.

But the end of the series it is. Last night’s episode saw Brownlow and Rose find out the truth about Monks from Nancy, and the latter finding that risking everything for young Oliver was perhaps not the greatest idea. Nancy lay in a pool of her own blood, brutally murdered by Sikes, who then did a runner with young Oliver. You could sense things coming to the boil, which was lucky because tonight’s episode was the end of the enjoyable series.

With Sikes on the run with a reluctant Oliver in tow, it was left to Brownlow to contemplate the unfortunate truth that his grandson – whose alias Mr Monks had been causing havoc across London – was not a very nice person. He soon dispensed with all sentimentality and took swift action – he sent the rozzers round to Fagin’s. Fagin, on his hands and knees and weeping, gave up the whole story and confirmed to Brownlow and the ‘peelers’ that Sikes had taken Oliver and that Monks had conspired to kill the young urchin. Fagin was led away to gaol, while the police disposed of his pet bird, Ezekiel.

Meanwhile, in the woods, Sikes wasn’t bearing up well. His maniacal squint was getting worse, and his gin-induced paranoia was producing haunting visions of Nancy. He was obviously going mad, and I didn’t think too much of Oliver’s chances of survival.

But, in a fit of super-madness, he had a go at all and sundry in a marketplace. While he was goading all-comers, Oliver managed to escape. Sikes, disappearing into the sewers, hung himself as Nancy’s smiling apparition looked on.

Oliver managed to find his way back to the Brownlow’s, Monks finally got what was coming to him, Fagin went to the gallows (although, interestingly, he was given a chance to convert to Christianity. He declined. This demonstrated the level of explicit anti-semitism at the time) and Mr Bumble and Mrs Corney got married (although as soon as their first celebratory drink was poured, Bumble soon found out what Mrs Corney was all about).

So Oliver’s nightmarish journey came to an end, and the Brownlows lived happily ever after, with a cheesy around-the-Christmas-tree scene to finish of with.

I had to take a bit of a breath at the end of it all. The series moved so quickly, and some serious liberties were taken with the original story, but isn’t that what adaptations are all about? Writers are there to adapt, to fulfill a brief and, in some ways, to fit square pegs into round holes. At least this is the way whenever anyone dares to adapt Dickens. It’s almost a lose-lose situation.

We should judge this series on its own merits, and with that criteria in mind I thoroughly enjoyed it. It didn’t have the natural, playful and delightful humour of Cranford, or the emotional complexity of Bleak House, but it was fun.

Overall Phelps did a good job, probably (and hopefully) introduced Dickens to a new audience and provided the actors with enough meat to sink their teeth into. If anything it was too breakneck, too liberal with the pruning. But what can you do? You get asked to shoehorn a huge story into five, bite-sized episodes, so you have spank it a little bit.

The acting throughout was just superb. Timothy Spall made for a great Fagin, Sophie Okonedo was just lovely as Nancy, Edward Fox the living, breathing incarnation of a stiff, Victorian gentleman, Gregor Fisher hilarious as Bumble and in Tom Hardy’s Bill Sikes you won’t have seen a scarier character on television all year.

So, all-in-all, a success.

Episode 1 review here.
Episode 2 review here.
Episode 3 review here.
Episode 4 review here.