Putting Dickens on stage is fraught with danger. The books are massive with a huge cast of characters and we all know them so well.

But Neil Bartlett has done the impossible and created a fresh perspective on Oliver Twist.

Bartlett lives in Brighton and is artistic director of the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith, where this adaptation was born. It is a darker reading of the tale than we normally get and the stylised presentation may not please everyone but this is a theatrical triumph.

Oliver Twist, published in 1897 and never out of print, has often been seen as a children's classic but this is an adaptation for adults.

A more honest description of the work is that of it as a story about childhood, as it tells the story of a young orphan boy being abused, running away and drifting into violent crime.

In Bartlett's hands, this tale of early Victorian poverty and degradation becomes a frightening affair. The script uses Dickens' original words and every incident is scrupulously faithful to the book.

This brings the audience face to face with the ugliness of the Victorian period, showing us the nasty under-belly of Britain at the time.

Its staging is dark too. The cast is dressed mainly in black and there is only minimal lighting. Pains have been taken to give us a show that would surely have been familiar to a Victorian audience.

Bartlett uses lots of period theatre trickery, such as hand-cranked signs, trapdoors, hidey-holes and Bill Sykes' terrifying final scene.

And there's music, too, although this is far removed from Lionel Bart's musical romp.

Bartlett includes a fiddle, a hurdy-gurdy and a serpent to recreate the music Dickens himself would have heard in the theatre.

Fagin (Michael Feast), is well handled, although a little over the top at times. But his behaviour when in prison and awaiting execution deftly humanises what is always in danger of being a stereotype. Jordan Metcalfe is a fine Oliver, naive and feisty and always believable.

His final discovery of happiness and hope may be sentimental but you could never have Dickens without some tugging of heartstrings.

The rest of the ensemble work hard and deftly sum up Dickens' grotesque characters with just a few gestures and, of course, those original words.

Owen Sharpe's Artful Dodger is well played, Kellie Shirley makes a fine Nancy and Nicholas Ashbury is a boo-inducing Sykes.

This is a tale that could not have been staged in any natural manner and Bartlett is to be congratulated in coming up with a landmark production.