The mystery of the BBC

So now it's official: there won't be a new "David Copperfield" adaptation either. The BBC axed "Dombey and Son" for a "David Copperfield" that isn't going to happen. Nice. Well, I can live with the disappointment when it comes to DC, because as I've mentioned before, the BBC has already made an excellent adaptation of the book. Maggie Smith as Betsey Trotwood, Bob Hoskins as a Micawber even I liked - except in That Scene, kept mercifully short, when he squeals and is self-righteous about it - how do you top that? But for axing Dombey, there is still not a shadow of an excuse.

But let's be fair. There are two Dickens adaptations forthcoming for the bicentenary: a new "Great Expectations", and "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" on BBC Four. And I'm glad, I really am.

Although, honestly, "Edwin Drood"? They're not doing "Dombey and Son", but they're doing "Edwin Drood"!? It wasn't even finished, and did not promise to go anywhere interesting. As has been gently pointed out in the Literary Life column in the Sunday Telegraph, we already know who dunnit. It was John Jasper - and believe me, I'm not giving anything away. What's more, we know what he did - murdered his nephew. We know why he did it - because he's inexplicably in love with Edwin's fiancée Rosa Bud, who is just as ghastly as her name suggests. We know how he got rid of the body - he buried it in quicklime. We can even be pretty sure - yes, we can - who Dick Datchery is. He's a private detective hired by the lawyer Mr Grewgious to clear up Edwin Drood's disappearance. Dickens is always Dickens, so the book is far from rubbish, but it's really not much of a mystery. As for Jasper, yes, he's interesting in a way, but his willingness to be trampled under foot by the beastly Rosa is dispiriting. I preferred Dickens's villains in the pre-Headstone days when they wanted to be the masters in erotic relationships, not slaves.

"Great Expectations", though, that I can understand. True, the BBC has done an adaptation of GE in the not too distant past (the one with Charlotte Rampling as a neurotic Miss Havisham), but it was more than ten years ago now, and it wasn't that successful. Good actors struggled with their parts, for which they were often miscast, and with a script with singularly little Dickens in it. Yes, if you're an adapter of course you have to prune, cut, add and maybe put a personal stamp on your adaptation, but why, for pity's sake, replace Dickens's marvellous monologues with your own efforts? The adaptation's pro-Orlick bias, if odd, was rather sweet, and seems to prove my theory that there really is no Dickens villain - with the possible exception of near-invisible heartbreaker Compeyson - who doesn't have a fan club somewhere. I can't see the point of Orlick myself (too oafish and not very clever), though he has a case of sorts: when he says that Pip "was always in Old Orlick's way", he is speaking nothing but the truth. Then again, Pip has reason to believe (and proves to be right) that Orlick brained his sister.

So, yes, a new adaptation of "Great Expectations", although woefully short of interesting male villains, will be welcome. "Great Expectations" is a masterpiece, after all, and there's always Jaggers, who walks like a villain, talks like a villain but is a goodie in disguise. As for "Edwin Drood", yes, OK, bring it on. Maybe an inventive adapter has found a way of framing someone else than poor Jasper for Edwin's murder - Rev. Crisparkle (as in an enjoyable short story I once read - sadly the motive was not convincing), the irritating Mr Grewgious or, best of all, Rosa Bud herself.