Great Expectations: Douglas Booth and Gillian Anderson star in the BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens's novel. Photo: BBC
10:00PM GMT 29 Dec 2011
The defining scene in BBC One’s new version of Great Expectations (Tue-Thu) was the death of Miss Havisham, the jilted bride who lives in her wedding dress. In Dickens’s novel, her dress catches light when she sits too near the fire; she dies weeks later from shock. In the adaptation, however, she solemnly lowered her veil, made a pyre of her ex-fiancé’s love letters, then stepped into the blaze and burnt herself to death.
It can’t be easy to make Great Expectations more melodramatic than it already is, but the BBC managed it.
The novel tells the story from boyhood to majority of Pip, a penniless Kentish orphan. Given Dickens’s taste for the fantastical it may seem unfair to criticise an adaptation for its implausibility, but I rather lost faith in this one the moment it introduced us to the full-grown Pip (Douglas Booth).
Having entered the pupa of adolescence as a scowling urchin (Oscar Kennedy), he emerged as an androgynous heart-throb with a boy-band fringe, exquisitely shaped eyebrows, and skin of aftershave-advert purity. For some reason that I can’t quite put my finger on, it was difficult to believe in this pouting beauty as a Victorian blacksmith’s apprentice.
Having entered the pupa of adolescence as a scowling urchin (Oscar Kennedy), he emerged as an androgynous heart-throb with a boy-band fringe, exquisitely shaped eyebrows, and skin of aftershave-advert purity. For some reason that I can’t quite put my finger on, it was difficult to believe in this pouting beauty as a Victorian blacksmith’s apprentice.
Still, he didn’t linger in so unseemly a milieu for long; thanks to his unexpected expectations, so to speak, he fled to London to become a gentleman, or at any rate a stuck-up little twit. But though he looked a convincing fop, he didn’t look a convincing Pip. Pip is meant to be a plain, unprepossessing boy who yearns for a girl, Estella, in every respect out of his league; if Pip’s is by far the most photogenic face on view, it’s hard to see why he’s so dazzled by her.
There was little sense of how funny Dickens is. Even his bleakest novels are rich in comedy.
Watching this adaptation, I found myself wondering why Tim Burton has never done Dickens; if anyone can capture his fairy-tale ghastliness and macabre wit, it’s the director of Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice. Next year, as it happens, Burton’s wife, Helena Bonham Carter, will star in a film of Great Expectations – but the director is not Burton but Mike Newell, of Four Weddings and a Funeral. What will it take to make Burton fulfil his artistic duty? A visitation from the Ghost of Movies Yet to Come?
Watching this adaptation, I found myself wondering why Tim Burton has never done Dickens; if anyone can capture his fairy-tale ghastliness and macabre wit, it’s the director of Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice. Next year, as it happens, Burton’s wife, Helena Bonham Carter, will star in a film of Great Expectations – but the director is not Burton but Mike Newell, of Four Weddings and a Funeral. What will it take to make Burton fulfil his artistic duty? A visitation from the Ghost of Movies Yet to Come?
Absolutely Fabulous (BBC One, Christmas Day) returned with its first episode in six years. Patsy (Joanna Lumley), the awful fashion editor, and Eddy (Jennifer Saunders), the awful PR woman, were bickering with Eddy’s daughter, Saffy (Julia Sawalha). Patsy had just revealed that her magazine pays her no salary.
Saffy: “You must have paid national insurance. What about your pension?”
Eddy: “How dare you!”
Patsy: “I’m 39!”
The episode was spoilt somewhat by the studio audience, who made it feel like a half-hour lap of honour. When Lumley tottered on to the set they cheered as if she’d brought home six Olympic golds. Even the weakest gags prompted ecstasies of applause. It was eerie. I don’t know whether a North Korean dictator has ever made a sitcom, but if one did, I imagine the laughter track would sound like this.
Fans of Downton Abbey (ITV1, Christmas Day) say people who knock it are snobs. An odd criticism, given that as Downton fans they must by definition love snobs. The great thing about Downton, though, is that you don’t have to take it seriously to enjoy it. In fact, those who think it’s nonsense probably gain more pleasure from it than those who think it’s first-class drama.
The Christmas special practically squelched with romance. Matthew Crawley continued to mope about Lady Mary (“I deserve to be unhappy!”). Nigel Havers wooed Lady Rosamund. Countless others took it in turns to pine, sob, sigh and kiss. It was like a period-set Nescafé Gold Blend advert, and surely brought more good cheer to the public than anything else on television over Christmas, unless you count the title of ITV’s one-off music show Westlife: For the Last Time.
The Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) was in splendidly camp form. “No fortune? He’s lucky not to be playing the violin in Leicester Square!” Her character is doubtless meant to be like Lady Bracknell but really she has more in common with those wonderful wisecracking matriarchs who used to light up Coronation Street, except that no one on Corrie would pronounce Square as Squaaah.
Fans will have adored the climax, in which Matthew proposed (again) to Lady Mary, but for me the highlight was, as ever, the Earl of Grantham’s chest. My interest is purely scientific. The Earl’s chest is so perfectly convex as to be an anatomical impossibility. He has curves Dolly Parton can only dream of. He looks like Desperate Dan in a dicky-bow. And, just as Samson’s powers resided in his hair, so the Earl’s powers reside in his chest. Towards the end, Matthew and his love rival, Sir Richard Carlisle, came to blows. You knew the game was up for Sir Richard when the Earl’s chest burst angrily into the room, followed five seconds later by the rest of him.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8981195/Christmas-TV-review-Great-Expectations-BBC-One-Absolutely-Fabulous-BBC-One-Downton-Abbey-ITV1.html
Saffy: “You must have paid national insurance. What about your pension?”
Eddy: “How dare you!”
Patsy: “I’m 39!”
The episode was spoilt somewhat by the studio audience, who made it feel like a half-hour lap of honour. When Lumley tottered on to the set they cheered as if she’d brought home six Olympic golds. Even the weakest gags prompted ecstasies of applause. It was eerie. I don’t know whether a North Korean dictator has ever made a sitcom, but if one did, I imagine the laughter track would sound like this.
Fans of Downton Abbey (ITV1, Christmas Day) say people who knock it are snobs. An odd criticism, given that as Downton fans they must by definition love snobs. The great thing about Downton, though, is that you don’t have to take it seriously to enjoy it. In fact, those who think it’s nonsense probably gain more pleasure from it than those who think it’s first-class drama.
The Christmas special practically squelched with romance. Matthew Crawley continued to mope about Lady Mary (“I deserve to be unhappy!”). Nigel Havers wooed Lady Rosamund. Countless others took it in turns to pine, sob, sigh and kiss. It was like a period-set Nescafé Gold Blend advert, and surely brought more good cheer to the public than anything else on television over Christmas, unless you count the title of ITV’s one-off music show Westlife: For the Last Time.
The Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) was in splendidly camp form. “No fortune? He’s lucky not to be playing the violin in Leicester Square!” Her character is doubtless meant to be like Lady Bracknell but really she has more in common with those wonderful wisecracking matriarchs who used to light up Coronation Street, except that no one on Corrie would pronounce Square as Squaaah.
Fans will have adored the climax, in which Matthew proposed (again) to Lady Mary, but for me the highlight was, as ever, the Earl of Grantham’s chest. My interest is purely scientific. The Earl’s chest is so perfectly convex as to be an anatomical impossibility. He has curves Dolly Parton can only dream of. He looks like Desperate Dan in a dicky-bow. And, just as Samson’s powers resided in his hair, so the Earl’s powers reside in his chest. Towards the end, Matthew and his love rival, Sir Richard Carlisle, came to blows. You knew the game was up for Sir Richard when the Earl’s chest burst angrily into the room, followed five seconds later by the rest of him.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8981195/Christmas-TV-review-Great-Expectations-BBC-One-Absolutely-Fabulous-BBC-One-Downton-Abbey-ITV1.html
