Spinning webs

I was unable to share in the excitement that there is yet another Spider-Man film. The main appeal of the latest is apparently that multiple Spider-Men (Spiders-Men? SpidersMan? It remains etymologically ambiguous) can co-exist in the same dimension, thanks to some jiggery-pokery dreamt up by Benedict Cumberbatch with a silly Fu Manchu beard.

However, I am hoping that this “shared universe” idea can now be extended to adaptations of great twentieth century literature. I look forward to the Netflix series Decline and Fall and Dance! (To The Music of Time), in which Captain Grimes and Kenneth Widmerpool compare notes on how to be a rotter, and get away with it. Then there is the eagerly awaited Howards End of the Affair, featuring a stirring mixture of Catholic guilt, repressed passion and snobbish speculation about rising property prices in the South-East. I expect Julian Fellowes will be on hand to write the screenplay.

Talking of lord fellowes of Belgravia-cumHollywood, I was disappointed to discover that his new Downton Abbey film has been delayed until March: everybody likes a turkey at Christmas, after all.

I must also confess that I was surprised to discover that it existed at all, believing that it was little more than a spook story dreamt up by parents to threaten their children with, in the event of their continued bad behaviour. “Eat your greens or I’ll make you go and see Downton Abbey 2.”

Now that it is indeed coming to a cinema near you on 18 March, I will redouble my threats to my daughter. No doubt I’ll end up paying for it in the long run with years of therapy, but for now the prospect of her being forced to endure yet more of Michelle Dockery’s impersonation of an indecently surprised marionette is enough to ensure good conduct until the spring.