Suitable? It’s sensational PICK OF THE WEEK
Ready for your next blockbuster drama? The BBC’s sumptuous adaptation of Vikram Seth’s epic saga is just what you’ve been waiting for
Vikram Seth’s second novel, A Suitable Boy, was greeted with almost universal acclaim on publication in 1993, quickly turning one of the longest novels ever published in the English language (nearly 1,500 pages and half a million words) into an unlikely bestseller.
Now this astonishing, sprawling saga, set in the first years after India’s independence, has been ingeniously adapted into an unmissable BBC drama.
The enthralling six-part series tells a tale that has a large element of Jane Austen in its affairs of the heart but also possesses a historical and political sweep worthy of Leo Tolstoy.
It’s 1951, and the young people of the nascent nation are torn between ancient tradition and their own longings. For Lata (Tanya Maniktala) that means an impossible choice: she’s fallen deeply in love with a charming, devastatingly handsome fellow student, Kabir, only to learn that he’s a Muslim – an unthinkable match for her Hindu family.
Meanwhile, Maan, a layabout youth who’s Lata’s relative by marriage, embarks on an equally ill-starred love affair with the irresistible courtesan and singer Saeeda Bai. All the while in the background there are rumblings of sectarian tension that threaten to explode into violence at any moment as the country’s first democratic election draws closer.
But that’s just a small sliver of a feast of a story by Andrew
Davies, the go-to guy for getting hefty tomes into shape for the small screen and who made his name with the classic 1995 BBC production of Pride And Prejudice and recently scripted the hugely successful versions of Les Misérables and War And Peace.
Helmed by director Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding, Salaam Bombay!), A Suitable Boy is the first BBC costume drama to have an entirely non-white cast. It offers an enchanting vision of the past, its rich narrative adorned with the music, art and breathtaking landscapes of India. The visuals and costumes are sumptuous, the script a word-perfect delight, and the superb cast, which features many actors already celebrated in Bollywood, also introduces an incandescent new star in Maniktala, who is tipped for international success on the back of her captivating performance.
As for the novel itself, if you haven’t succeeded already, don’t despair, you can still try to read it through to the end, even after watching the series. And who knows? Perhaps even the Twitter generation will be inspired to pick up this colossal tome and discover that ‘hundreds of characters’ once had a very different meaning...