Please sir, I want some more…an orphan runs away to hook up with young pickpockets in late 1880s London.

This Best Picture Academy Award winning film is a huge musical production based off the book Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. In Act 1, we see young Oliver loses a bet to ask the cruel headmaster of the orphanage for some more gruel on behalf of the starving kids. Displeased with this gesture, Oliver is sent into labor at a funeral home where really awful acts cause him to escape. Heading into London in Act II, his life becomes more complicated as he falls into a seedy underworld helmed by a murderer and a pickpocket. It all may sound dark but, rest assured, Oliver gets the good life in the end! Although not as heavy as Dickens’ novel, the film retains some of the subtextual meaning for the adults while being more upbeat and entertaining for the kids.

Part of Nitehawk’s CHEEKY MONKEYS May brunch children’s series.