The corpulent count reborn as a boyband star
Woman in White fans bemused at TV’S sexy portrayal of Collins’s ‘fat and ugly’ character
IN THE Wilkie Collins novel The Woman in White, Count Fosco is described as “as fat as Henry VIII himself ”, with “odious corpulence” and “close on 60 years of age”.
At the hands of the BBC’S adaptation team, his transformation into a “boy band member lookalike” has not gone unnoticed.
Viewers have criticised the drama for its creative licence in reimagining the appearance of the Count, now played by Riccardo Scamarcio, the Italian actor.
One expert said it was a shame to see the novel “sexed up” and suggested modern viewers were “less tolerant of characters who are not conventionally attractive than Victorian audiences were”.
In Collins’s 19th century novel, the scheming Italian count, who plots to deprive Laura Fairlie of her wealth and sanity, is described as “immensely fat”, with one narrator noting she would “ridicule in the most merciless manner” his “peculiarities” had they been exhibited by anyone else.
In several previous screen and stage productions, Fosco has been faithfully portrayed as old and obese with pet white mice creepily running all over his body. In a 2004 West End production of the story, Michael Crawford relied on voluminous fat suits and facial prostheses in his rendition of the part.
In the latest BBC One adaptation, Fosco has been transformed into a charismatic count played by 38-year-old Scamarcio.
Michael Hogan, The Daily Telegraph critic, said of the casting: “Broodingly handsome Italian actor Scamarcio re- sembles a tousle-haired member of One Direction or a young Ian Mcshane – which made his sexual chemistry with Marian all the more plausible.”
Dr Clare Walker Gore, a junior research fellow in English at Trinity College, Cambridge, who is an expert on Victorian novels including the works of Collins, wrote on Twitter: “Who put Fosco on the crash diet? He’s meant to be outrageously and disarmingly fat.
“Were his fruit tarts drowned in cream stolen by the same thieves who took all Laura’s corsets and day dresses? His fans need answers.”
Saying she is “generally keen” on the show, she elaborated: “In Collins’s book, Fosco looks very fat and Marian is said to be masculine and ugly. “But in the end, this physically unattractive but brilliantly devilish man turns out to have some magnetism to him and there is a suggestion of a frisson between Fosco and Marian.
“In the television series, they have played that up and I think it is a shame they have sexed up the characters.
“I am enjoying the series but I think it is a shame that the BBC did not take the opportunity to explore, as Collins did, the idea that physical looks can be deceptive.
“Maybe modern audiences are less tolerant of characters who are not conventionally attractive than Victorian audiences were.”
Liz Nickels, another viewer, said: “The whole point of Fosco is that he is extremely seductive despite, or because of his obesity, and that he and Marian have this odd love/hate attraction
‘Broodingly handsome Italian actor Scamarcio resembles a tousle-haired member of One Direction’
‘The whole point of Fosco is that he is extremely seductive despite, or because of his obesity’
going on.”
Jackie Hunter said: “In the novel, Fosco is famously described as an enormously fat man. Cannot approve of this thinned out version [in] The Woman in White.”
Some viewers have further criticised costume inaccuracies, claiming that the character of Marian would never have worn culottes and that 19th-century women always wore hats outdoors.
Others claimed that the character had been rewritten for a more empowered “feminist” era with comments such as “How is it men crush women time and time again and go unpunished?”
The BBC said that the opening episode was watched by 5.7million viewers, taking iplayer into account.
It did not comment on its portrayal of Collins’s fictional characters.