Extra Twist

OLIVER Twist has been adapted for stage and screen more than 50 times.

So why, you may ask, has the BBC decided to revisit the Dickens story again?

Is there anything new they can draw from the yarn?

These were questions one of the stars of the five-part drama, Julian Rhind-Tutt, also asked himself before he decided to take on the role of Mr Monks.

"I wasn't turned off by it, but I was slightly sceptical," the 39-yearold admits. "You never know if anything is going to be any good, but that's particularly true of period dramas because there has been a real glut of them recently, of varying qualities. I am old, jaded, cynical and bitter, so I was thinking, is this going to be any good?"

Luckily, he was very pleasantly surprised by the script, which has been penned by former EastEnders writer Sarah Phelps. Like the hugely successful Bleak House, the story has been split into bite-size chunks for its latest retelling.

"I think she's managed to extract the tightest, sharpest, fast-moving screen adaptation," Rhind-Tutt says. "What you get is an original sense of the melodrama. You get the story in episodes, like a soap, with cliff-hangers and a very taut script. I have been in some terribly written programmes, but I was genuinely amazed by this script."

The former Green Wing actor plays Mr Monks, who was a peripheral character in the book, and indeed in other adaptations, but whose role is magnified in this dramatisation.

"He's the grandson of Mr Brownlow, and it's in his interests to see the demise of Oliver Twist because his inheritance will be threatened," Rhind-Tutt explains.

While probably not as evil as Bill Sikes, Mr Monks is certainly what Rhind-Tutt describes as "a rotter".

"It was brilliant," he says of playing such a nasty piece of work.

"I've not really done that before, so I practised my evil looks in the mirror. But you have to be very careful with your glowers because they can go horribly wrong - bad people believe they're good, so I had to remember that."

Rhind-Tutt joins an all-star cast for the show, including Edward Fox, Anna Massey, Timothy Spall, Tom Hardy and Sophie Okonedo. Many would be a little daunted by such well-regarded colleagues, but Rhind-Tutt says he tried to take it in his stride. "I've had just about enough experience of working with dauntingly brilliant, famous people to know that they're usually very nice. Luckily, I have known Edward for a while - I've worked with his daughter (Emilia Fox) in the theatre, so we hung out. I clung on to that posh set of actors - they even let me into their house once,"

he laughs.

For many, it will be a surprise to see Rhind-Tutt in a serious drama.

Although he has appeared in films including Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and more recently Stardust, it's his role in the surreal medical comedy Green Wing that most people know him for. In it, he starred as effortlessly cool surgeon Mac, and the part made him a bit of an unlikely sex symbol.

As for the future, Rhind-Tutt says he hasn't got anything in the pipeline at the moment, apart from the possibility of some more of those Barclaycard adverts he and Green Wing co-star Stephen Magnan appear in.

"We might do more,"

he says. "I hope so.

Then I can buy another Porsche."

* Oliver Twist is on BBC1 from Tuesday at 8pm