Ellen Gray: 'Masterpiece' returns to 'Twist'

MASTERPIECE: OLIVER TWIST. 9 p.m. Sunday and Feb. 22, Channel 12.

'PLEASE, SIR, I want some more."

It's a polite enough request, but when it comes to television and "Oliver Twist," "some more" never seems to be quite enough.

On Sunday, PBS' "Masterpiece" launches "The Tales of Charles Dickens" with a two-part return to the classic tale of the workhouse orphan who longed for more than he'd been given, and eventually received it.

It's been only a little more than eight years since "Masterpiece" last presented "Oliver Twist," in a three-part production starring Robert Lindsay as Fagin and a youngster named Sam Smith as Oliver. Its supporting cast included the likes of Julie Walters as well as a young Keira Knightley ("The Duchess") and Isla Fisher ("Confessions of a Shopaholic").

ABC's "The Wonderful World of Disney" did the "Twist" thing in 1997, with Richard Dreyfuss as Fagin, a job he took with the stipulation, he said then, that he could "use my father's nose."

On Sunday night, Timothy Spall ("Harry Potter") steps onto the screen as one of Dickens' most ambivalent villains in a largely unexceptional version adapted by Sarah Phelps.

His voice creepily caressing, Spall is appropriately chilling and lovable as the man who sets out to make the boy from the workhouse a successful thief. Unfortunately, he's also distracting, thanks in part to hair and wardrobe that suggest aging hippie, circa 1968.

That's not the only thing that seems occasionally out of step with "Twist's" times - Oliver (William Miller) has a tendency, we're told at one point by the Artful Dodger (Adam Arnold), to go "bonkers," a word that Dickens likely wouldn't have encountered for another 100 years.

But then, sadly, he might not have encountered an actress like Sophie Okonedo, either.

Okonedo ("Hotel Rwanda") brings true grit to Nancy, Oliver's friend and the doomed lover of blackhearted thief Bill Sikes (Tom Hardy), who could be said to treat her like a dog, if only he didn't treat his dog better.

"I said to Sophie Okonedo - I said, 'We are doing something unusual here, black Nancy, fat Fagin,' " Spall told reporters last month.

In adapting a classic, "you are allowed to take liberties, and you are allowed to specify and condense the brilliance of what Dickens has done and then try and shape it to be as relevant as it possibly can," Spall said.

Andrew Davies, who's adapted many a classic for "Masterpiece," including Dickens' "Bleak House," has most recently tackled the writer's "Little Dorrit" for a production that premieres March 29.

That's after a March 15 and 22 repeat of the "David Copperfield" that launched the career of "Harry Potter's" Daniel Rad-cliffe. (That 2000 production was "Masterpiece's" second "Copperfield" in a little more than a decade, but apparently this one's a keeper.)

Though far less prominent than some of Dickens' other tales of youthful struggles, even "Little Dorrit" had been filmed at least once before.

"There's a rather strange six-hour movie divided into two parts, which was written and directed by a woman called Christine Edzard," Davies said of the 1988 version.

"And I was very cross when that came out, you know, because I'm saying, 'Oh, God, it's going to be at least 10 years before anybody will be allowed to have another crack at it,' " he said.

But that's "Little Dorrit."

For "Oliver Twist," the possibilities of remakes seem endless. *

Send e-mail to graye@phillynews.com.