Christopher Eccleston to Lead Cast of 'Oliver Twist' Prequel 'Dodger'

Former Doctor Who star Christopher Eccleston will lead the cast of Dodger, a new story set in the world of Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist.

The ten-part family drama will be set prior to the events of Dicken's famous novel and will follow the exploits of the infamous pickpocket, the Artful Dodger, and Fagin’s gang as they find ingenious ways to survive the grim and exploitative conditions of early Victorian London in the 1830s.

Eccleston will play Fagin, who in the original novel is a largely sinister underworld figure who takes homeless boys - such as Oliver - and turns them into pickpockets. Whether this series will paint the leader of what is essentially a Victorian child gang in such an unappealing light is anyone's guess, but since the story seems as though it will be largely focused on Fagin, Dodger, and the other boys in their troupe, we have to assume he'll at least turn out to be mildly sympathetic as a character.