Mr Brownlow: My favourite Charles Dickens character (2024)

My Favourite Charles Dickens character: Mr Brownlow from Oliver Twist (1838)

Charles Dickens had a strong sentimental streak and he excelled at kindly, avuncular characters. Perhaps the best is Mr Brownlow from Oliver Twist. Just before he has his pocket picked by the Artful Dodger, Dickens writes of him:

"The old gentleman was a very respectable-looking personage, with a powdered head and gold spectacles. He was dressed in a bottle-green coat with a black velvet collar; wore white trousers; and carried a smart bamboo cane under his arm. He had taken up a book from the stall, and there he stood, reading away, as hard as if he were in his elbow-chair, in his own study. It is very possible that he fancied himself there, indeed; for it was plain, from his abstraction, that he saw not the book-stall, nor the street, nor the boys, nor, in short, anything but the book itself: which he was reading straight through: turning over the leaf when he got to the bottom of a page, beginning at the top line of the next one, and going regularly on, with the greatest interest and eagerness."

He plays a key role in Oliver Twist's salvation and I'm in good company in picking him as my favourite Dickens. A colleague recently asked Brian Blessed, who has played Dickens and starred in plays of his book, who would he choose as his favourite character? "Mr Brownlow. He's just so kind." I couldn't agree more.

The full series of 'My favourite Charles Dickens character' is:

• Mr Pickwick (The Pickwick Papers) by Sameer Rahim

• Wilkins Micawber (David Copperfield) by Terry Ramsey

• Sir Leicester Dedlock (Bleak House) by Andrew Baker

• Jo The crossing sweeper (Bleak House) by Paul Gent

• Jennie Wren (Our Mutual Friend) by Ivan Hewett

• Mr Pumblechook (Great Expectations) by Andrew Pettie

• Bazzard (The Mystery Of Edwin Drood) by Philip Womack

• Sydney Carton (A Tale Of Two Cities) by Patrick Smith

• Oliver Twist (Oliver Twist) by Gaby Wood