I discovered a video version of the 1988 film after my second viewing of the 2008 TV drama and found it to be bitterly disappointing in comparison. But then I realized that 20 years had elapsed and it would have been surprising if the TV version were not better. After all they had one of the best adapters of Dickens ever in Andrew Davies and now have digital technology to assist in the production. All I remember in 1988 is that I thought the film was wonderful; I now think that the TV drama was sublime! To be self indulgent I would compare the performances of the actors in the main characters as follows: Amy Dorrit - about equal; William Dorrit about equal, but Alec Guiness is sooo good; Fanny Dorrit - TV; Mrs Murdle - film; Alfred Dorrit - film; Flora Finching - TV (but only because Miriam M is made to over-act); Arthur Clennam - equal; Mrs Clennam - TV; Flintwinch - TV (again, because Max Wall is allowed to overdo it). But then - what do I know! The music deserves a mention, with the TV drama being vastly superior.

Not terrible by all means, but I did find myself underwhelmed watching this Little Dorrit. The book is such a mammoth book, an insightful and blistering piece of literature, but like a lot of Dickens' work very difficult to adapt. Previously I had seen the 2008 BBC version, which I absolutely loved, finding the performances outstanding(especially Tom Courtenay and Andy Serkis) and the whole production rich in detail.I can definitely understand why some would have a lot of affection for the 1988 Little Dorrit. Production-values-wise it does look wonderful, with the sets evocatively rendered while never looking too clean and the costumes beautifully tailored. The photography is skillful as well. Miriam Margoyles and Pauline Quirke impress, but there are three especially outstanding performances. Derek Jacobi, whose Arthur Clennam is outstanding with an ability sometimes to say so much without saying much. Sarah Pickering whose Amy is every bit as appealing as Claire Foy in the 2088 mini-series, except here I feel the character is written in a more sympathetic way. And Alec Guinness, whose heart-wrenching performance as William Dorrit makes for one of his finest screen performances.But I can also see why others mayn't like this version too much. Of the acting, I was disappointed in the Flintwitch of Max Wall, he is a good physical actor but saying his lines is another story, I felt he did overdo it. I do admire the effort to include as much of the dialogue as much as possible, but at the end of the day the whole script came across as too wordy and in some scenes overlong. In regards to the music, I preferred the simpler and more subtle one in the 2008 version, here it was overbearing and had a danger of drowning out the dialogue, then again it could've been to do with the sound which was rather muffled. But it was the pace and the storytelling that didn't work the most for me. I do think a slow pace was necessary in the first place considering the sprawling and mammoth nature of the story, but with the pauses, mumbling and lifeless crowd scenes I did actually find it almost insufferably dull pace-wise. And if I hadn't read the book or seen the 2008 mini-series, I don't think I would have been confused by what was going on in this adaptation. I didn't like that it was in two 3-hour parts focusing mainly on either Arthur or Amy and making other characters come and go without elaborating on much(such as Casby being called a hypocrite and the rise and fall of Mr Merdle for examples), as well omitting Tattycoram and one of Dickens' best ever characters Rigaud.All in all, has some good stuff like the period detail and three outstanding performances, but pace and story-wise this Little Dorrit was disappointing. 5/10 Bethany Cox

When I first saw the cast list of the two movie 1988 Little Dorrit, I was really excited and expecting a sumptuous feast of Dickens. What I got however was dreadful. In fact I would go as far to say that it was the worst historical drama I have seen on the screen. Worst ever screenplay Worst ever direction. The music is completely incongruous and sometimes played so loud that it drowns out the actors. In fact all the sound levels are totally off. Dreadful, dreadful acting in some places that even the likes of Alec Guinness cannot rise above. I would imagine that he cringed when he watched this for the first time. The lead character of Sarah Pickering playing Little Dorrit could not act if her head was on fire. It's embarrassing. It is amateur hour really and a very expensive waste of great actors like Jacobi and Guinness. Terrible limited sets that kept cropping up throughout. I mean, how many times can they use the bridge scene. I sat through the whole lot, but this movie is only fit for one thing, DELETION...

BBC Radio 3 puts out a fascinating programme each week entitled "Building a Library" in which CDs of classical works are compared and evaluated culminating with a "best buy" recommendation. This would hardly be possible with works of cinema where very rarely are there more than two versions, the first invariably the winner as a movie can only be that good to tempt a remake. I suppose one could do a "Building a Library" with "Hamlet" but I wouldn't be in a position to take that on as I only know two versions (Olivier and Branagh) really well. How about a collective "Building a Library" - film versions of Dickens, say, - now that would be a real challenge. Here goes! I won't deal with all as that would take up too much user comment space. Just a few for good measure. Remember Noel Langley's "Pickwick Papers" of 1952 - great fun with a host of good cameo parts from people such as Joyce Grenfell, Hermione Baddeley, Donald Wolfit, Harry Fowler and others but all rather lightweight compared with the rest I have chosen. Earlier still was Cavalcanti's version of "Nicholas Nickleby" for Ealing, some good sets and the scene where wicked Uncle Ralph gets his desserts wonderfully atmospheric, but so much to cram into a film of moderate feature length that scenes scarcely have time to breathe. Although a good try it all seems too rushed. The oddball in this little collection is undoubtedly a 1988 Portugese version of "Hard Times" set in modern day Lisbon by Joao Botelho, well worth seeing as a curiosity but hardly to be compared with my remaining four choices, each very special in its own right. I would have to include one TV version in my shortlist as the BBC generally do their classic serials so well and were on superlative form with their 1999 "David Copperfield", even capping George Cukor's richly entertaining 1935 film. (Just occasionally a more recent version is better!) The reason I admire the BBC version so much is the wonderful casting with Maggie Smith, Pauline Quirke and Nicholas Lyndhurst playing roles they were just born for. There is even a diminutive Harry Potter playing young David most affectingly. It is probably the Dickens adaptation that moves me the most though I suppose it has to be eclipsed by the three that have that greater degree of cinematic imagination. These are the marvellous David Lean '40s adaptations of "Great Expectations" and "Oliver Twist" and most recently Christine Edzard's "Little Dorrit". For a long time "Oliver Twist" was my favourite of the Lean pair, oodles of atmosphere, wonderful art direction and camera-work and a rooftop climax to take the breath away, but I suppose "Great Expectations" has it for libretto, late as opposed to early Dickens and Lean an ever faithful interpreter of the novel's range and subtleties. Without Christine Edzard's "Little Dorrit" it would be the winner. Her remarkable independent production for length alone (two films totalling six hours) dwarfs all contenders. She cleverly tells the same story from the different perspective of the two main protagonists, Arthur Clennem and Amy Dorrit, this "Rashomon" like approach dominating the first half of each film. The pace is leisurely but always purposeful - none of those irritating longueurs of characters taking up time to cross a street or room that bedevil so many TV adaptations. Street scenes in particular have an amazing sense of realism with hoards of people bustling along giving the feeling of just how busy Victorian London must have been, the credit sequence of Part I wonderfully effective in depicting this. We sense from this very opening the loving care with which every background detail of Dickens's vast fresco of society will be unfolded. As in the novel everything revolves around the theme of money and the misery that both possession as well as dispossession can bring. The casting is faultless with marvellous swansongs from Joan Greenwood and Max Wall and Alec Guinness possibly at his finest as William Dorrit, a superb portrayal of a shallow man with delusions of grandeur. Throughout Edzard is at pains to eschew anything that smacks of pathetic fallacy by not over dramatising atmosphere, but the film never looks plain. Although most of the exteriors are studio constructed the interiors have an extraordinary sense of authenticity down to the last detail. Everything looks and sounds exactly right such as the shabby wallpaper of a livingroom in the Marshalsea with at one point the seemingly endless buzzing of a solitary fly. Unlike the Lean films this is one that seems constructed out of everyday incidents rather than great dramatic setpieces. It is not a film that moves and excites as much while one is watching it, until, that is, the final half hour. When it reaches the tragedy of William Dorrit's mental confusion at a society banquet followed by the terrible scene leading up to the suicide of Merdle where he visits his son and daughter-in-law to borrow a knife we have the realisation that to search for an adaptation that more perfectly realises Dickens's intentions would be an impossibility.