Barnaby Rudge

Peter Ackroyd has described Barnaby Rudge as ' one of Dickens's most neglected, but most rewarding novels.' This is the only dramatization, made when the BBC was not afraid to educate as well as entertain. The writer, the great Michael Voysey remains faithful to the original - there is no tinkering with the plot to make it ' more relevant to the modern audience ' or more ' politically correct .' There are some wonderful performances by well-known actors, such as Raymond Huntley, Joan Hickson and Esmond Knight. Thank goodness it survived the BBC's purge of the archives. It is far superior to the travesties of great novels that they churn out nowadays.

This is an epic 5 disc set with over 6 hours of viewing. It covers every episode of the BBC production first screened in the 1970s. It’s in black and white and it’s a little dated in terms of sound and picture quality, but stick with it because it’s a long and remarkable story.Barnaby Rudge is a simple soul who wanders in and out of the scenes. It’s a pastiche of characters and events, all interwoven and including some notable events; the Gordon Riots, demonstrations against Catholics and social injustice. It’s complex and intriguing and despite the slightly retro effects, I’ve really enjoyed this over a number of evenings. It’s true to the book and a great interpretation.

Amazon has no half star option, and this is definitely not a four star piece of drama, so I leave it with a three star. It starts off promising, goes down the hill a little bit with how complicated and mashed together the different parts of the story are, then it picks up at about Episode 9 and ends gloriously. It wasn't a pain to get through by any means. As a matter of fact you barely feel the half hour each 13 episode runtime, it just isn't quite as captivating, and I understand why this particular Dickens tale hasn't been adapted again in the last 61 years. Not a classic by any means, but worth owning for the cultural/historical value alone, and I'm not ashamed to keep it on my shelf with the other five Classic Dickens Collection DVDs. I think the best way to watch it is ignore the first seven episodes (pretend they were junked and lost forever) and just watch episodes 8-13. You might not understand it at all beyond what it explains to you in those particular episodes, but boy will you have a great time watching it.

Hours of pleasure

I remember seeing this series in 1960. I enjoyed it then and am pleased to be able to watch it again. It keeps as close to the book as possible..The picture quality is far better than I thought it might be because of its age..

Poor quality sound and vision ..barely watchable . Very disapointed

Black and white production from 1960 so it was not the best quality because of the vintage. However it was really good to see a TV adaptation of a Dickens book which is not so well known and as far as I can remember from having read it years ago, it was fairly true to Charles Dickens and as far as I know the only TV adaptation of Barnaby Rudge.

My husband and I really enjoyed this. It's so nice to have a dramatized version of Barnaby Rudge at last, my favourite Dickens novel. Why has there not been another made since 1960? I was expecting the production to be a bit creaky but was pleasantly surprised at how good it actually is. The acting is superb and even the sets are believable, if restricted by being in the studio. Wonderful to see all those excellent character actors again, sadly no longer around.

I realize you say this in the small print, but maybe you could highlight it so others don't make this same mistake.