Audible has unveiled its brand-new all-star audiobook version of Oliver Twist, produced by Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes (Skyfall, 1917).
It stars Brian Cox (Succession) as Fagin, Daniel Kaluuya (Nope) as Bill Sikes, Nicola Coughlan (Bridgerton) as Nancy and Emilio Villa-Muhammad (The Man Who Fell to Earth) as Oliver.
The stacked cast also includes Kit Connor (Heartstopper), Paapa Essiedu (The Capture), Julia Davis (Gavin & Stacey), Nick Mohammed (Ted Lasso), Patricia Allison (Sex Education), Diane Morgan (Motherland) and Lucian Msamati (Gangs of London).
The audiobook is released today (30th November) – you can listen to it right here or sign up for a 30-day free trial of Audible here.
Cox said: “Dickens was a genius storyteller and Oliver Twist may be his greatest ever work. Reimagining a character as complex and changeable as Fagin offers a real challenge for an actor, and I hope listeners enjoy our telling of this masterpiece.”
Kaluuya added: “There are few villains as infamous or terrifying as Bill Sikes, and I really enjoyed getting the chance to record a new take on him for Audible. Keep the lights on – some of his scenes are really dark.”
Meanwhile, Mendes said: “Dickens was the ultimate storyteller, and hearing Oliver Twist come to life in such a compelling, 3D way feels exactly how he might have wanted it to be experienced.
“The cast is fantastic, and I’ve never heard an audio production before that is so filmic. It’s cinema for the ears.”
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The new audio drama tells Dickens’s classic story, with young orphan Oliver born into a grim 19th century workhouse, yet later being evicted and eventually getting ingratiated into a gang of young pickpockets led by the Artful Dodger (Elijah Wolf) and Cox’s Fagin.
The audiobook features an original score from Dan Gillespie-Sells, and includes Foley recordings captured in Dickens’s former London house at 48 Doughty Street, in the rooms where he originally wrote the novel.
Two more Audible Original adaptations of Charles Dickens classics are set to be produced by Mendes, with the second instalment in this trilogy being released next year.
Other recent releases from Audible include Richard Armitage’s debut audiobook Geneva, which also features Armitage’s former Spooks co-star Nicola Walker.
Sam Mendes’ Oliver Twist is available now exclusively on Audible – sign up for a 30-day free trial of Audible here.
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