Annette Crosbie, a veteran of both stage and screen, plays Mr. Brownlow's kindly housekeeper:

"Mrs. Bedwin is appalled by the way everyone else treats Oliver and I empathize with that. I remember reading Oliver Twist when I was young and being put off Dickens for a very long time, because I found it so upsetting. And I still find it upsetting; it is such a tale of child abuse that it is quite blood curdling, so to play a character who has some kind of decent feelings towards children and ordinary maternal instincts made it more bearable for me. Mrs. Bedwin is an amalgam of many parts in the novel and she is an antidote to the kinds of grotesques that we tend to associate with Dickens."