@gargoyle: I hope you realise that Lionel Bart was not attempting to adapt the Dickens novel as such. He wanted to write a music-hall style musical. He used the 1948 film as his main source and considered his show to be "freely adapted from Dickens' Oliver Twist." Ron Moody's interpretation of the character of Fagin as done by Lionel Bart isn't anything but Guess what -- Ron Moody's interpretation, of Lionel Bart's version of the character of Fagin. Lionel Bart's version. Not Charles Dickens' version. The musical ain't Dickens but it never claimed to be Dickens.

And I consider your idea that I don't understand Dickens' London to be crazy.
I learnt about it and I've been researching the 19th century for fun by myself for years. I know about the slums, the low payment of factory workers. The fact that some women chose streetwalking rather than backbreaking work. The abuse and corruption in the workhouses. And I know enough about 19th century New York City to know that some gangsters were also political bosses and that among other things, Five Points was called "The worst slum in the world" and that wealthy and middle-class people from all over the city and all over the States and the world, including Dickens himself, visited it. I may be young, I may be Australian and I might not be an expert, but I'm not stupid or ignorant.


I'm already regretting starting this thread.. I can just see how it's going to go...   bla bla you don't understand this, you 're making assumptions. Basically a copy of the other thread.