Doctor Who Vs. Oliver Twist (2005)

By 2005, the French-born film-maker, Roman Polanski was keen to produce a child-friendly cinematic version of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist - actually the first adaptation since the Oscar-winning musical, Oliver! in 1968. This new rendition, shown on Film4 today, was shot entirely in the Czech Republic.

Literary classic Oliver Twist (also known as The Parish Boy's Progress, and originally published monthly in Bentley's Miscellany from 1837-39) was only Dickens' second novel.

The cast here was headed by Sir Ben Kingsley as Fagin, with the famous orphan now portrayed by Barney Clark (picutred left), and also featured these ten Doctor Who cast connections:

• Ian McNeice (Limbkins) played Winston Churchill in Victory of the Daleks, The Pandorica Opens and The Wedding of River Song (a role reprised for Big Finish's The Churchill Years), and also voiced Zeus for Immortal Beloved (2007), and Reginald Harcourt for The Renaissance Man (2012)
• Chris Overton (Noah) voiced Terrill and Levek for The Brood of Erys (2014)
• Jamie Foreman (Bill Sykes) was Eddie Connolly in The Idiot's Lantern
• Timothy Bateson (Parson) was Binro in The Ribos Operation
• Joseph Tremain (Hungry Boy) was Jim in The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances
• Peter Copley (Master) was Dr Warlock in Pyramids of Mars
• Gerald Horan (Farmer) was Clark in Human Nature and The Family of Blood
• Patrick Godfrey (Bookseller) was Tor in The Savages, and Major Cosworth in The Mind of Evil
• Frank Mills (Officer) was the Radio Telescope Director in Terror of the Autons
• Paul Brooke (Grimwig) voiced Paolo for The Ghosts of N-Space, and Toby the Sapient Pig for Year of the Pig (2006)

Great Doctor Who Quotes #37

“He never raised his voice. That was the worst thing… the fury of the Time Lord… and then we discovered why. Why this Doctor, who had fought with gods and demons, why he had run away from us and hidden. He was being kind… He wrapped my father in unbreakable chains forged in the heart of a dwarf star. He tricked my mother into the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy to be imprisoned there… forever. He still visits my sister, once a year, every year. I wonder if one day he might forgive her… but there she is. Can you see? He trapped her inside a mirror. Every mirror. If ever you look at your reflection and see something move behind you just for a second, that’s her. That’s always her. As for me, I was suspended in time and the Doctor put me to work standing over the fields of England as their protector. We wanted to live forever. So the Doctor made sure we did."
- Son of Mine, The Family of Blood (June 2nd 2007)
Written by Paul Cornell

Great Doctor Who Quotes #16

"It told me to find you, it wants to be held.

Because it was waiting, then because I was so scared. Of the Doctor.

Because.. I've seen him. He's like fire. And ice. And rage. He's like the night and the storm and the heart of the sun.

He's ancient and forever. He burns at the centre of time, and he can see the turn of the universe.

And he's wonderful."

- Tim Latimer, The Family of Blood (June 2nd 2007)

Written by Paul Cornell