Dodger, review: please, Sir! We want more, more, more of this fizzingly witty Dickens adaptation
Dodger (CBBC), a family entertainment which began last year, lifted a clutch of characters from Oliver Twist and granted them the freedom to live again in a new caper about thieves and paupers. Dickens, like Shakespeare, is a sitting duck for this sort of treatment, which in recent times has given us the continuing adventures of Mr Micawber and a whole EastEnders-style soap mashing up characters from all over the curiosity shop.
To enjoy Dodger – and there’s a great deal to enjoy – calls for no prior knowledge of the novel. Indeed, Christopher Eccleston’s Fagin feels stripped of all ethnic signifiers, and is recognisable more because of the juvenile company that he keeps, a gang of sharp-tongued urchins led by Billy Jenkins’s Dodger.
In this hour-long episode we have a new young queen, Victoria, played with delicious teenage petulance by Nicola Coughlan. The former Derry Girl actress mastered a posh English accent in Bridgerton and here she winds it up another notch. Her Majesty is in a mood because her coronation present from the uncouth and comically incomprehensible President of the United States (Toby Stephens) has been half-inched by Dodger’s gang taking a leaf out of Dick Turpin’s playbook.
The gang soon spy a grander prize – the crown itself. Cue an Ealing-esque caper in which Paul Whitehouse’s over-trusting Beefeater, guarding the crown in the Tower, is easily hoodwinked. Also tossed into the plot are Madame Tussauds and a corrupt bunch of Peelers.
There’s another lovely performance from Lenny Rush (also to star in next year’s Doctor Who), who has the comedian’s gift for keeping a straight face. A BBC regular who has played Tiny Tim at The Old Vic and on BBC One, he is in his element as a shoeshine boy with his ear to the ground.
That Dodger can attract such a splendid cast – it also includes Simon Callow as a gibbering archbishop – is testament to a fizzingly witty and zippily plotted script by Lucy Montgomery and Rhys Thomas. Nothing is immune from their gentle ribbing, from the foul-breathed urban poor to the hoity-toity higher-ups of church and state. Some of the longer-winded coronation rituals, which trigger impatient yawns in Her Majesty, will be familiar to younger (and perhaps older) viewers who sat through Charles III’s enthronement. It’s a mystery why this delight hasn’t been held back for Christmas Day.
This episode of Dodger is on CBBC on Sunday at 4.50pm and on BBC iPlayer now
