This is going to be long — LOL. On the upside, there will be several miniseries and film recommendations, and lots of photos!

Being a bit layed-up recently, I’ve been watching some film & mini-series adaptations of the lesser known Dickens novels.

There are a few adaptations of the big titles that I can watch over and over again with absolutely no problem — seriously stunning, with incredible performances. If you’d like to get into some Dickens, check out one of these.

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I highly recommend the brilliant 1999 David Copperfield with Maggie Smith and Daniel Radcliffe (and a boatload of British film faces). Also remarkable — the 2005 Bleak House with Gillian Anderson & Charles Dance (it’s my favorite). The third of my top three, (however by no means at the bottom), is the 2011 Gillian Anderson Great Expectations. All absolutely top-drawer. The Helena Bonham Carter/Ralph Finnes Great Expectations is quite well done too. I’ve seen all of these several times, and will see them again.

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I didn’t care for the 2023 FX/Hulu version of GEx with Olivia Colman, much as I love her work. The 2012 The Mystery of Edwin Drood is at the bottom of my list. I don’t think I made it through one episode. (They made it very romance-y, dwelled on Rosa, and didn’t quite capture the atmosphere.

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I binged a 1977 version of Hard Times over the last day, and quite liked it! Didn’t strike me as corny/silly and 70s at all. I also enjoyed — I don’t even know what to call it — The four-episode 2001 Dickens “spinoff,” Micawber. A rare Dickens comedy, not corny, and well done. The characters are intact, but the plot for each episode is original. There’s a 1995 Martin Chuzzlewit that I liked enough to finish, but wouldn’t watch it again. On the silly side of things, there’s a goofy comedy called The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff, a sort of Dickens-inspired sitcom mash-up. It’s okay, just not my thing.

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All in all, I liked the miniseries, Dickensian. It’s very clever, and it’s certainly beautiful. They’ve stuck a ton of Dickens characters into the same few blocks of London, woven their lives all together, and explored how they became who they are in the novels. Brilliantly written. Of course, once you’ve seen it, there’s no reason to watch it again.

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Today, I’m starting a 1998 BAFTA Award-winning version of Our Mutual Friend, with Timothy Spall (a favorite) in the cast. We’ll see how it goes.

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To answer the question which must be answered — my favorite version of A Christmas Carol is the 1999 version with Patrick Stewart as Ebenezer Scrooge. It keeps a lot of what most of the other versions toss out, the language is more poetic and true to the original, and their version of Scrooge’s London is stunning; in addition to the terrific performances.