Sumptuous, sexy drama makes light work of Indian epic
A Suitable Boy, episode one
Some people climb Everest. Others run marathons. As an alternative feat of endurance you can read A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth’s house brick of a novel. I loved it, as I imagine most people do if they reach the end, because why else would you stick with it through 1,535 pages?
Now A Suitable Boy is a television series, condensed into six episodes. I watched the first with dread: please don’t say they have messed it up. I’m relieved to say that they haven’t.
The adaptation comes laden with baggage. There have been grumbles that the screenwriter is Andrew Davies, a white Welshman entrusted with the story of post-independence India. But Davies was Seth’s choice, and this is hardly a whitewashed production: the cast is Indian and the director is the great Mira Nair (the woman behind the joyous 2001 film Monsoon Wedding). And after the dog’s breakfast that was The Luminaries, it is a relief to watch a literary adaptation made by someone who actually knows what they are doing.
The signature of Davies is all over it: the humour, the flirtatiousness, the hint of sex. He has taken the novel apart and stitched it back together with a tighter focus on the characters who matter, discarding unnecessary sub-plots. Seth clearly had the great Russian novels in mind when he wrote A Suitable Boy, and great Russian novels tend to involve stirring passages about the human heart interrupted by deathly bits about agricultural reform. I seem to remember Seth’s book going into very great detail about shoe production. Knickers to that, says Davies, here’s some snogging. A gay history between two male characters, which was dropped with only the subtlest of hints in the original, gets its place in the sun.
The heroine is Lata, played with great charm by Tanya Maniktala, whose mother is determined to find her the husband of the title. The parallels with Jane Austen are obvious, which goes some way to explain why Davies was the automatic choice after his famous treatment of Pride and Prejudice. As Mrs Rupa Mehra, Mahira Kakkar is the only mild disappointment – she would be a better character, and funnier, if played more as a Mrs Bennet.
The parallel story involves Maan (Ishaan Khatter), the louche son of a politician, who falls head over heels for the singer and courtesan Saeeda Bai (renowned actress Tabu). In and around them are various friends and family members, whom Davies introduces at quite a clip.
The all-indian cast is a first for a British period drama. The BBC boss who commissioned it, Piers Wenger, has said this was a “gamble” and a creative risk. But there is nothing here to scare the horses – Seth was educated at Tonbridge School and Cambridge, and his middle-class characters wear cricket whites and earnestly discuss James Joyce. The Fifties detail is lovingly recreated. It’s all deeply romantic. If you think this looks a bit like an Incredible India tourist advert – everything is gorgeous, suffused in golden light – then you would be right. But why not? It’s supposed to be a sumptuous Sunday night drama, not India’s answer to Cathy Come Home.
The parallels with Jane Austen are obvious, which is why Davies was the automatic choice after his famous treatment of ‘Pride and Prejudice’