++ IN PRINT :: INTERVIEWS & ARTICLES - OLIVER TWIST ++

 

This interview originally appeared on Teletext, December 2007

 

Spooks star twists again - has ever a story been retold as often as Oliver Twist?

 

... Spooks star Nicola Walker insists the BBC's new version is far grittier than predecessors.

 

"It's not like a theatrical version or Christmas Dickens Special at all. You can tell by the cast just how real it is", says the London-born actress.

 

Adapted by East Enders writer Sarah Phelps, Nicola stars as workhouse pauper Sally alongside Timothy Spall, Sophie Okonedo and Tom Hardy.

 

"Sarah's drawn out all the human relationships and focused on those," says Nicola. "She's made it real, not something that belongs in the past."

 

"Adapting is all about making a story relevant for now. Everyone thinks they understand Bill and Nancy, but Sarah takes their story to a strange place."

 

"I've never seen it done like that in any version. Sarah has a very, very od brain!"

 

Having spent most of her life in the workhouse, Sally's story is a sad one. "She has no concept of a life outside this institution, she's like a prisoner who's become a guard."

 

"It's a very political system and Sally has had to learn to curry favour to acquire a position of some power."

 

Present at the death of Oliver's mother, Sally is handed a locket to pass on.

 

"She's never seen anything as beautiful in her life," says Nicola "but Sally doesn't have the brains to realise that if she passed it on it might be a good thing. She's not conniving - Corny [the Matron] would have sold it - but she doesn't know how anything works outside workhouse life, so she just keeps it."

 

By doing so, Sally sparks off an uneasy time for Oliver at the workhouse - filmed at the disused Clerkenwell House of Correction in Central London.

 

"It was how you'd imagine it if you read the book. There were cockroaches as big as my hand," recalls Nicola. But did the cast tuck into gruel? "We used Ready Brek with something extra to make it gluey. The kids were terrified that if they got out of hand, we'd make them eat it!"

 

It's been over a year since Nicola left the role of Ruth Evershed in Spooks - and she admits she misses the cast.

 

"I regret that I can't get up in the morning and laugh my head off with Peter Firth. But I was pregnant and it was obvious Ruth was getting strangely fat, so I decided to go," she says. "It's odd watching it now though, I just think, 'Where am I?' It's so peculiar as it's such a familiar set."

 

© Charlie Ghagon, Teletext 2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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