Barkis Michael Elphick Barkis is the local cart driver. A man of very few words, he decides to marry Peggotty after having tasted one of her pies. He needs David to take her the message, however -- "Barkis is willin'." More than 30 years ago, Michael Elphick was an apprentice theater electrician working on a Chichester Festival Theatre production of Othello, starring Maggie Smith and Laurence Olivier. He never imagined he would one day play opposite Smith. "She was absolutely wonderful, incredible." Elphick says that on rereading David Copperfield for his part, he realized just how sad many of the events were. "But Barkis is a lovely character, and I did get a bit anxious about delivering his most famous line: 'Barkis is willin',' said when he tells David to take the message to Peggotty. It is such a well-known line. The big mystery for me is how Barkis, when he died, managed to leave £3,000. He's such a scruffy bugger. There are no clues in the book to show how he got the money ..." Doing a Norfolk accent for David Copperfield proved difficult. "It's the rhythm of it and the fact that the h's are pronounced more strongly than most other accents. I've got several tapes of Norfolk people talking, and even they vary their accents a lot, depending on which bit of the country they live in."