Actors Prunella Scales and Samuel West read the works of author Charles Dickens, with music of Dickens' time played on Victorian musical boxes and cylinder pianos alternates between the spoken work passages. It contains extracts from "Oliver Twist" (1839), "David Copperfield" (1850), "Little Dorrit" (1857), and the climax, three marvelous scenes from "Great Expectations" (1861).