This is where Oliver spends his early days – in the workhouse, then at the undertakers. Dickens is not specific about where this town is. All we know is that when Oliver runs away, it took him 7 days to walk from there to London. It is widely presumed to be based on Chatham in Kent, about which Dickens had written in some of his journalism. In Bleasdale’s dramatisation, the town has the fictitious name of Bruntmarsh and is a seaside town.
The location chosen for this vital part of the story was Alston in Cumbria, which was selected for a number of reasons. Miles from the actual coast itself, perched up at over 1900 feet in the North Pennines, the town claims to be the highest market settlement in England. Malcolm Thornton considered a number of actual coastal towns in the South, but decided that they were all too pretty. “We wanted the town to look really simple and honest; somewhere that didn’t need too much work to get rid of its modernity.
We happened to be in this area looking at a nearby location and so we came to Alston. I had an immediately positive reaction to it, mainly because of its shape – there is a natural triangular relationship between Sowerberry’s shop, the workhouse gate, and the pub. It has a steep cobbled slope leading up to the Market Square and, importantly for us, there are not too many modern shop fronts. We wanted to show that Oliver’s early years were fairly charmless, so it had to look gritty and close knit.
The last thing we wanted was for it to look in any way twee or cosy.”
Keith Thompson adds: “The important thing about Alston is that it is a working town. There are plenty of villages in the South of England, which are perfectly preserved, but they are just too pretty and don’t have the right atmosphere. Another good thing about Alston is that it doesn’t reveal its geographical location by its architecture. ” Alston lies in the midst of the most dramatic landscape.
But with the dramatic landscape also came dramatic weather. Scheduled for a week’s shooting in April – supposedly springtime – they encountered the most extreme weather conditions from hail, freezing snow, bracing winds and bright sunshine. In caused a nightmare for continuity. But despite the appalling weather conditions, the atmosphere between locals and the invading unit was one of genuine co-operation. Hundreds of local people volunteered to be extras.
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