The Charles Dickens Collection, Volume 1 (Oliver Twist / Martin Chuzzlewit / Bleak House / Hard Times / Great Expectations / Our Mutual Friend) (Slim Packaging)

My mom has been trying to replace much of her dvd collection since her divorce, and this was on her list. I was so excited to get this for her. It's exactly like the old one was, so no complaints.

This box of Dickens dramas is a wonder. My wife and I rate it probably as the best "literary" made-for-TV drama series that we've seen yet. Yes, we've both read most of the books, and I've actually lectured on a few of them. But what a treat to see these solid, caring, often imaginative presentations, with fine direction, a few star actors filling key roles, abetted by superb work from the other players. The sets and costumes. too, open up the Dickens world in their own persuasive way. Very rarely do the productions seem narrowly stagy or limited; they have a real movie feel. Could anyone conceivably do these as well as the British, or more specifically the BBC? Hard to believe.Most of the Dickens novels are big sprawling productions where a great many characters appear, cross paths, and become part of a story that illuminates some key aspects of the social reality of the Victorian Age. The wonder is that, as presented here, the stories also seem very contemporary and relevant. The script-writers are really expert at leaving out certain things in the texts and yet conveying the complexity and sweep of the story. There are so many delicious moments in these shows: Lady Dedlock's confrontations with Tulkinghorn, Tom Pinch's seeing the light about Pecksniff in Martin Chuzzlewit, the wonderful opening of Bleak House where Lizzie helps her father fish corpses from the Thames. Yes, these are not played just as entertainment; there is real darkness here, moral darkness, the darkness of poverty, of narrowness and stupidity, and the filth that accompanied the glitter of Victorian life is not concealed. These are balanced, of course, by the warmth Dickens always generates when things go right, and when good people work together. Compulsive viewing, we found.I often found that the language of the great Victorian writers was too much for the slick and quick readers among my students. Well, here is a way of tasting something of the Dickens language, of entering the Dickens world, without straining to master the idiom. I'm not advocating that we stop encouraging people to read Dickens, but here is another road to his wonderful world. Those who have read him will enjoy almost all of this, while others may be led into a print-world they will treasure.One sour note: speaking of language, why does the BBC preface these dramas with such idiotic advertisements for their other productions? These noisy, stupid come-ons are totally out of place and show complete contempt for the (presumably) North American viewers at whom they're directed.

I have a large collection of BBC dramatizations of classic English literature and was looking forward very much to the Charles Dickens collection, but when watching Great Expectations I found that episodes froze about 1 to 2 hours into the disk on both sides. I had played the disk on a Sony DVD player and tried playing it on our computer DVD drive with the same result. The video itself was great except for the freezing, which forced us to skip 3 episodes.I ordered a replacement with the same results. I played Our Mutual Friend with the same result on both the DVD player and computer: episodes froze about 1 to 2 hours into the disk. Episodes earlier and later on the disk played without any problem. I was greatly disappointed and returned the collection for a refund--doubly disappointed because I had looked forward to purchasing volume 2 as well.I'm curious whether anyone else has had a similar problem with BBC double-sided DVDs. I assume there's an incompatibility between the device used to burn the disks and our Sony DVD player and IBM ThinkCentre M51 DVD drive.Subsequent to writing the preceding review, I bought the prior version of The Charles Dickens Collection, Volume 1, in which each title is packaged in its own slipcase. The DVD's in that version play without freezing. It was a used box set, but I'm happy to have a fully functioning set of the DVD's. I also have Volume 2 in the slimcase packaging, and those DVD's also play without problem.

What a shame that these great stories are drowned by dismal, blaring music, terrible audio quality and poorly preserved color film! Shame on BBC Video for this inexcusable presentation. It's a good thing we've read all the books and know the stories or we would have been lost just trying too follow. There are no subtitles in this either so you are on your own trying to understand what the voices are saying.

Highly recommended. These versions were first shown on PBS in the mid-80's and are superior to the adaptations they have shown recently of a couple. (The latest "Our Mutual Friend" even gave away the entire surprise in its first five minutes! This one keeps the surprise in its proper place!) The brilliant Tom Wilkinson plays Mr. Pecksniff perfectly in "Martin Chuzzlewit" with Paul Schofield. Diana Rigg is tragic and superior in "Bleak House" and I'm delighted to find Joan Hickson as Miss Havisham! In an extra on the "Hard Times" DVD, this being the only adaptation that is unwatchable...in the extra, is a spooky half hour adaptation of "The Signalman" with Denham Elliott, well worth the purchase. The unfortunate policy of Amazon in accepting returns of DVDs only within a month-long period necessitates watching the DVDs quickly---some stories are 8 hours long. I would have preferred not to binge-watch them, and I still have "Great Expectations" and "Oliver Twist" to go but the month is up today, so hopefully the discs continue to work.. One, "Martin Chuzzlewit" did freeze up and skip; turning the player off and on again seemed to fix that. Excellent production values and adaptations!I turned off the DVD player and turned it back on, and it worked fine.