Alan Bleasdale on Mrs. Mann and Mr. Bumble: "Dickens has created two brilliant comic characters. I loved the idea of David Ross and Julie Walters playing them and I wrote very much with them firmly in my mind. They work so well together and they make me laugh. Dickens understood more than anyone about the need for some light relief from heavy emotions. He taught everybody that."

David Ross plays the parish beadle who christens the newborn Oliver Twist, and has an eye for Mrs. Mann.