IT may have been a surprise to some that director Roman Polanski chose as follow up to the personal, Oscar-winning The Pianist the Charles Dickens classic Oliver Twist.

But Polanski has revealed that he sees close parallels between the forced orphancy of his childhood during the Nazi occupation of Poland, the exile from his second homeland, the US, on rape charges and the plight of the bereft Oliver trying to survive in Victorian London.

Polanski and scriptwriter Ronald Harwood have adapted Dickens' convoluted tale which would run for something close to five hours screen time giving prominence to Oliver's time with Fagin and his band of child pickpockets in London.

Consequently, there is little time for his earlier privations in the workhouse which took up so much of David Lean's 1948 film version. The "Please sir, can I have some more" scene is rushed through to get Oliver under Fagin's wing.

The plot advancing is forgiven, though, when the filthy, crowded capital streets of London first come into view. Polanski has the winding streets of Prague double for London and you can almost smell the dirt and disease.

With this emphasis the role of Fagin becomes more central than ever and Ben Kingsley brings a newfound complexity and ambivalence to the avaricious character.

Polanski is Jewish and Kingsley is from Jewish heritage and the portrayal is a welcome re-reading after the shameful anti-semitism of Alec Guiness's hook-nosed playing in Lean's film.

In Polanski's version Fagin is no longer an accomplice in the murder of Nancy and he does seem genuinely caring of his young charges.

In fact, Kingsley plays him, despite Fagin's decrepitude, as a child at heart himself.

There is one scene where his quarters are raided by the police where Kingsley cowers down to the same height as the children around him to hide and becomes one of his charges.

Unfortunately most of the other performances pale alongside Kingsley's. As with the novel, there is a hole at the centre of the story with Oliver being such a characterless cypher.

Barney Clark brings the requisite wan-faced innocence to the role, but Polanski charges Oliver's passive demeanour with a mystical, saint-like quality at the end of the film.

He retains a rarely used scene where Oliver vists a babbling Fagin in jail before he is sent to the gallows. The old man pleads his innocence to Oliver as if he was a heaven-sent saviour.

Leanne Rowe as Nancy conveys little of the required slavish devotion to Bill Sykes and there appears little reason for her sudden devotion to Oliver.

Jamie Forman appears rather physically slight to back up his threats as Sykes, and for most of the film seems more fearful than fearsome.

Despite Polanski's mouldings of the tale there is plenty of authentic Dickens dialogue spoken and the opening credits are full of Dickens' illustrator Marcus Stone's woodcuts.

However, the film is nowhere near as affecting as Polanski's last work.

Kingsley may be in with a shout of an Oscar nomination for his role and there will be plenty who will enjoy the pungent evocation of the times.

But, when the action darkens as Sykes takes deadly action to cover his tracks, the coverage is hurried and univolving.

An interesting reading of a classic and worth seeing.

By Mark Edwards