Spectacular? It makes Downton Abbey look like a bungalow . . .
Sometimes it is possible to love your favourite author a little too much. Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey, adores Anthony trollope, and this reverence was apparent in his version of Doctor Thorne (itV).
to a trollopean, and i am an ardent one, the great man’s books are beyond criticism. sinking into one of his sprawling, wordy, witty tales is like stretching out in a soft armchair beside a fire after a gigantic meal — sheer old-fashioned indulgence.
Lord Fellowes, undoubtedly a chap who appreciates fine dining and fireside soft furnishings, enjoys the novels so much that he read one on his honeymoon. that’s the mark of a passionate fan.
But the best tV adaptations have to treat their source with callous disregard. Condensing a 600-page story into a few hours of telly means chopping up scenes, banishing characters and boiling down dialogue. And i f the ending is unsatisfactory — as is the case in tolstoy’s War And Peace, for instance — then a new one must be written.
that’s what makes Andrew Davies such a brilliant adapter — having been behind the recent BBC tV production of the tolstoy classic, as well as versions of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen works. He isn’t afraid of the authors.
Fellowes showed a shade too much respect in this luxuriant costume drama. it is taken from trollope’s series of Barchester Chronicles, set in an imaginary english county where the aristocrats are always skint, the parsons are dashing and every tankard of ale is foaming over.
Young ladies wear hoops under their skirts, and wrap dim-witted gentlemen round their fingers. Villains swig brandy from the bottle. even the foxes are eager to be hunted. such a perfect england never existed, but it’s always waiting for us in the novels that trollope wrote so industriously — 3,000 words every morning, before setting off to work at the Post office.
He hated surprises, and would usually give away his endings in the first few pages. that doesn’t work on tV, because we need suspense and cliffhangers.
Fellowes made a mistake by copying trollope faithfully, and revealing early in this three-parter that wicked sir Roger scatcherd intends to leave his millions to his illegitimate niece — money that would enable her to wed her posh-but-dozy boyfriend and save his snobby family from ruin.
Without narrative tension, the drama relies on sumptuous sets and superb actors. Both of these it has in barrowloads.
ian mcshane, a major star in America since portraying the foulmouthed brothel-keeper in Deadwood, was magnificently nasty as sir Roger, reeking of booze in his dishevelled nightshirt. Rebecca Front and Phoebe Nicholls vied to out-snoot each other, like two cats squabbling over a half-eaten fish.
tom Hollander played the doctor, though his character — sarcastic and prickly in the novel —has been watered down for tV.
one more notable face appeared: Cressida Bonas, former sweetheart to Prince Harry, here play- ing a clergyman’s sister with a taste for waltzing. she performed in the cavernous ballroom of a stately home that made Downton Abbey look like a bungalow.
it may respect trollope too much, but this production hasn’t stinted on cast, clothes or backdrop. it’s a real spectacular.
the same can’t be said of Thirteen (BBC2), which takes a great idea and wastes it with a criminal lack of imagination. Jodie Comer is ivy, a young woman who escapes from a squalid suburban dungeon 13 years after she was kidnapped by a fiend.
As she staggered out of the door, she stood bewildered, uncertain which way to go — and the drama suffered from the same problem.
every character was hesitant, and every line sounded like guesswork. this girl had been missing since 2003, but the police assigned just two detectives, who were more i nterested i n deciding whether they fancied each other.
Half a dozen Press photographers turned up to cover the story, but they got bored and wandered off by nightfall.
For all the absence of interest, ivy could have been a missing dog, not a stolen child.