Doctor Who Vs. Oliver Twist (2005)

By 2004, the controversial French-born filmmaker 

Roman Polanski was keen to produce a child 

friendly version of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist

- actually the first cinematic treatment since the 

Oscar-winning musical, Oliver! in 1968.
This new adaptation was shot entirely in the
Czech Republic.

This literary classic (also known as The Parish 

Boy's Progress, and originally published monthly
 in Bentley's Miscellany from 1837 to 1839) was
only the writer's second novel.

Barney Clark now portrayed the famous orphan,
 and the cast, headed by Ben Kingsley as Fagin,
also featured twelve Doctor Who acting alumi:

• Jeremy Swift (Bumble) voiced Fraser for Big Finish's Hidden Depths (2022)
• Ian McNeice (Limbkins) played Winston Churchill in Victory of the Daleks, The Pandorica Opens and The Wedding of River Song (a role reprised for The Churchill Years and Their Finest Hour), and voiced Zeus for Immortal Beloved (2007), and Reginald Harcourt for The Renaissance Man (2012)
• John Nettleton (Magistrate) was Reverend Ernest Matthews in Ghost Light
• 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)