Of course it's Davies - the great adapter (he'd done Bleak House in 2005). But it's Dickens - you'd have to be an idiot to balls it up. This is an epic eight hour version, but is zips along just like the serialised version must have done. (There was a similarly starry 6 hour version in 1987, before then a couple of versions from the 1920s).
And what an incredible cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Claire Foy, Tom Courtenay, Judy Parfitt, Eddie Marsan, James Fleet, John Alderton, Bill Patterson, Alun Armstrong, Sue Johnston, Andy Serkis, Freema Agyeman, Maxine Peake, Russell Tovey, Emma Pierson, Ron Cook, Ruth Jones, Annette Crosbie. But Eve Myles is something of a scene stealer playing a woman who thinks she's only ten. Almost every part is played by someone recognisable like Darren Boyd or Robert Hardy. Also with Amanda Redman and Anton Lesser, Sebastian Armesto (foppish suitor), Alex Wyndham, Georgia King.
It's the usual Dickensian gallery of desolation, poverty, crushing bureaucracy (The Court of Circumlocution is almost Kafkaesque), idiots, well meaners, grafters and murderers. And - people falling in love. He's a genius!
1 - 5 directed by Dearbhla Walsh, 6 - 11 by Adam Smith (notably a director of Chemical Brothers videos) and 12 by Diarmuid Lawrence. James Merifield is the production designer.
My recent thinking on writing long form as like characters as chess pieces and how you move them around the board is very nicely illustrated here. Some times you move a piece you haven't moved for a while, had forgotten about. Sometimes, your pieces can change colour!
The awfulness of Dorrit senior is exposed when he becomes rich and insists everyone change their behaviour and never mention the past. putting it all on poor Amy, who is also lumbered with an overbearing governess in the shape of Pam Ferris.
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