jacey | Booklog 28/2025: Tony Lee: Dodge and Twist, a sequel to Oliver Twist (Revised edition)

Full cast recording featuring Stephen Mangan, Matt Lucas and many more.

I don’t generally like full cast recordings, but this was done well, more like a radio play, which, indeed, was its first incarnation. This is a revised edition, ten years on from the first one. Twelve years after the events in Dickens’ original book, Oliver Twist is back on the streets of London, penniless because his inheritance from the recently deceased Mr Brownlow, his adoptive father, has been blocked by missing papers. He meets up with Jack Dawkins, the Artful Dodger, an enters a scheme to get his rightful money, even though it means jointing a plan to steal the world’s most valuable diamond from a safe in the British Museum. There are returning characters and new ones (Nancy’s sister). Just when Oliver starts to trust Dodger, the ghost of Fagin, in Dodger’s head, twists plans. It’s not just wealth Dodger is after, but revenge – for Fagin. Things get really dodgy and twisty before the final showdown.