From multi Oscar®-winning Oliver! to BBC’s hit series Bleak House, the world of film and TV have endeavoured to translate Dickens’s immortal stories to the screen. Dickens’s highly visual narrative style inspired early film-makers and many have credited the author with providing the very DNA that cinematic language is based upon. The oldest surviving film version of a work by Dickens – an adaptation of A Christmas Carol – is from 1901 and over a hundred years later Dickens’s works are still being filmed for cinema and TV and every one of his 15 novels has been filmed at least twice.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.
A word in earnest is as good as a speech.
Injustice breeds injustice
Accidents will occur in the best regulated families
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another
Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some
The sun does not shine upon this fair earth to meet frowning eyes, depend upon it.
Treachery don't come natural to beaming youth; but trust and pity, love and constancy,--they do, thank God!
Film, TV & Radio
Dickens on Screen National Tour
The BFI's programme of Dickens titles on screen will tour around the UK throughout 2012.
Museum of Modern Art, New York (USA)
The film and TV retrospective ‘Dickens on Film’ will make a stop in New York and will be hosted at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 2012.
The popular tale of the strong-willed boy still keeps audiences griped to their seats even though they know the ending so well. Come and view this popular tale at the National Maritime Museum with a magnificent view of Greenwich Park.
The film and TV retrospective ‘Dickens on Film’ will make a stop in New York and will be hosted at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 2012.
Film David Lean's Great Expectations at the National Maritime Museum
4/10/12 at 7pm
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
£5, at 7pm in the National Maritime Museum, please book in advance to avoid disapointment
(Director: David Lean, 1946. Classification: U) Described as the finest film yet made from a Charles Dickens novel, this film follows the trials and tribulations of the orphan Pip. With an unbelievable cast and a remarkable cinematography, this is an atmospheric film not to be missed.
From 28 November to February 2012, the BBC will celebrate the work of one of Britain’s greatest writers with Dickens on the BBC, a season of documentary, drama and discussion programmes across television and radio. From a bold new three-part adaptation of Great Expectations for BBC One to the completion of Dickens’ unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood by writer Gwyneth Hughes on BBC Two and Life-long Dickens fan Armando Iannucci reviewing the development of a revolutionary master story-teller.
Films such as David Lean’s Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities (1958) and Nicholas Nickleby (2003) will be shown across cities in China alongside literary salons with Chinese writers such as Mo Yan who will discuss the relevance of Dickens in contemporary literature today.
Dickens on Screen will be the largest retrospective ever staged of film & TV works based on or inspired by Charles Dickens. The season will premiere at the BFI Southbank in London in January 2012 and will embark on a national and international tour thereafter.
