Dickensian: five reasons why you need to watch the period soap opera

As ITV waves goodbye to Downton Abbey forever, BBC One is offering up a Dickensian mash-up of a period drama.

1) What the Dickens is going on?

BBC One’s ambitious 20 part series has extracted 30 of Charles Dickens’ 989 characters from their own novels and pieced them together for a new period drama-meets-soap opera. Viewers will see Arthur Havisham frequenting the same pub as Nancy and Bill Sykes, Silas Wegg paying off his debts to Jacob Marley while Fagin cooks sausages next door. Timelines have also been tampered with as Mrs Havisham is a glowing young girl.

2) It’s the brainchild of Tony Jordan

Co-creator of Life on Mars and former EastEnders script writer Jordan has made the mash-up possible. He wanted to mirror the way Dickens’ delivered his stories – via small instalments in periodicals – hence the 3o minute TV chunks.

3) It is bursting with British TV stars

Caroline Quentin, Stephen Rea, Pauline Collins, Peter Firth, Omid Djalili, Tuppence Middleton and Sophie Rundle are among the cast.

4) The set is amazing

The crew were concerned that they would have to film in Eastern Europe as they struggled to find a studio big enough to build the epic set. But a warhouse in West London was found and designers got to work on creating an entire Dickensian high street complete with 3o buildings, including Satis House and the Old Curiosity Shop, as well as a 90 metre cobbled street.