For Naxos AudioBooks he has recorded Black Beauty, Classic Chilling Tales, Macbeth, Oedipus the King and Krapp’s Last Tape. Jonathan has featured in over 250 radio plays for the BBC and was a member of the Radio Drama Company. TV includes People Like Us, The Two of Us and Deptford Graffiti. The relatively straightforward Twist will give way to the diffuse, picaresque Nicholas Nickleby, and then the real Dickens will be formed.Jonathan Keeble’s theatre work includes leading roles at Manchester’s Royal Exchange, Coventry, Liverpool, Exeter, Lancaster and West Yorkshire Playhouse. Certainly a worthwhile read, but possibly the least of Dickens' 'Big Fifteen'. What works in the story is the vividness of 'low' culture, and Dickens' already fierce moral stance on the inhumanity of much of 19th century English culture. Oliver Twist, carrying the torch from some of Dickens' sentimental Sketches is a rather lifeless little twig.

Only Fagin has any sparks of internal life, and he's an unfortunate anti-Semitic caricature common to the era.

One could argue it's still the work that has had the greatest impact on the public psyche: Dodger, Fagin, Nancy, and Bill loom large in the collective cultural consciousness, don't they? Who can forget Oliver asking for more, or the climactic tightrope walk? In truth, this is not a brilliant work. Written in 1837, during Dickens' astronomical rise to success, Oliver Twist is his third major work, second novel, and the negative counterpart to its exact contemporary, The Pickwick Papers.

Oliver twist audiobook