From yahoo.com:

In Dickens World, rat catchers hunt vermin on Londons cobbled streets, pickpockets roam the alleys — and visitors line up for a fun-tastic water ride.

A new theme park inspired by the work of Charles Dickens aims to transform a 70,000-square-foot warehouse near London into a teeming — and family-friendly — corner of Victorian England.

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In more than a dozen sprawling novels, including “The Pickwick Papers” and “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” Dickens created a rich tapestry of 19th century England, peopled by struggling workers, aspiring clerks, jaded lawyers, ambitious orphans, rogues, runaways and thieves. Still in print after more than a century, the books have inspired numerous film and TV adaptations and a popular musical, “Oliver”

Dickens Worlds backers say they are trying to capture that vibrant landscape in their $125 million theme park. They insist it is “based on a credible and factual account of Charles Dickens works and the world in which he lived.”

“You cant Disney-fy Dickens,” said managing director Kevin Christie, “because he was better and he was first.”

The indoor attraction includes a central square of cobbled streets and crooked buildings, where staff dressed as pickpockets and wenches will mingle with the crowds. Visitors who pay the $25 admission charge — $15 for children — will have the chance to see the Ghost of Christmas Past in Ebeneezer Scrooges haunted house, be hectored by a schoolmaster at Dotheboys Hall — the dismal school from “Nicholas Nickleby” — and peer into the fetid cells of notorious Newgate Prison.

Tourists can also have a meal in the cafeteria, which has resisted the temptation to offer “Please, sir can I have some more?” 2-for-1 specials. The little ones can play in Fagins Den, an area for preschoolers named — alarmingly, some might think — after the gangmaster of the band of thieves in “Oliver Twist.”

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