''Barnaby Rudge'' is a British

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

television series which originally aired on the BBC in thirteen episodes between 30 September and 23 December 1960. It was an adaptation of the 1841 novel ''

Barnaby Rudge ''Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty'' (commonly known as ''Barnaby Rudge'') is a historical novel by British novelist Charles Dickens. ''Barnaby Rudge'' was one of two novels (the other was ''The Old Curiosity Shop'') that Dickens publ ...

'' by

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

set against the backdrop of the 1780

Gordon Riots The Gordon Riots of 1780 were several days of rioting in London motivated by anti-Catholic sentiment. They began with a large and orderly protest against the Papists Act 1778, which was intended to reduce official discrimination against Briti ...

. The series survived the BBC's purge of the archives and was released on DVD in the USA around 2010, and later in the UK in 2017 by Simply Media. As well as being the only BBC adaptation, it remains the latest on-screen adaptation of the novel on film or television to date.

Cast

Archive status

All episodes were originally recorded on 405 line videotapes, which were later wiped or destroyed. However,

telerecordings Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program on motion picture film, directly through a lens focused on the screen of a video monitor. The process was pioneered during the 1940s ...

of all 13 episodes survived. Simply Media did not have the budget required to perform a full restoration of the copies, so the lining errors found on early videotape copies without VidFIRE restoration are prevalent, although only minor scratches and dirt are seen throughout the DVD release. The only notable exceptions are a fault in one of the earlier episodes where a line of dialogue and some brief footage are missing (most likely due to irreversible damage to the film), and the final episode, which has significantly poorer sound and picture quality than the other episodes.

Critical reception

Reviewing its DVD release, ''Archive Television Musings'' wrote "Although a handful of performances are less than effective and the story feels somewhat disjointed (it’s essentially two separate tales bolted together) Barnaby Rudge is still a serial of considerable interest. The theme of the later episodes feels eerily topical, offering a sharp change of pace from the countryside intrigues of the first half. It’s another well-crafted Classic Serial which, despite its length, never outstays its welcome."

References

External links

* 1960s British drama television series 1960 British television series debuts BBC television dramas Films based on works by Charles Dickens Television shows based on works by Charles Dickens {{BBC-tv-prog-stub