Factor "v" for villain

I still wonder why the Andrew Davies TV adaptation of "Little Dorrit" was not such a smash hit with the public as his earlier adaptation of "Bleak House". All right, so "Little Dorrit" didn't exactly flop: I bet more people watched it than that arty, dark, filthy-clothes-and-yellow-teeth Civil War drama which the BBC bragged so much about a few years back and which I still haven't been able to bring myself to have a look at. And I understand that the novelty of having a Dickens novel as a high-class soap opera had worn off. Lastly, "Bleak House" is a better novel than "Little Dorrit" (though "Little Dorrit" is brilliant too - well, it is by Dickens), so it's hardly surprising if the "Bleak House" adaptation is more popular. And yet... When you think of all the good things which made "Bleak House" compelling viewing, and which are there in "Little Dorrit" as well, I can't but feel that the latter has been undervalued. Great storytelling? Yep. Zippy pace? You got it. Engaging characters? Present. First-class acting? And how!

I'm rewatching "Bleak House" at the moment, which has brought these thoughts on, and an old pet theory of mine about one reason why it proved so popular. There is one thing "Bleak House" has which "Little Dorrit" doesn't: the villain factor.

Years ago, I read an article about costume dramas and how producers were always looking for the "f" factor which would make the drama catch on - "f" standing for a feisty female lead. Even then, I was thinking: hang on, what about the "v" factor? Yes, a spunky female to admire and identify with is good, but a nice, juicy villain is better. Well, naturally as a villain-lover I was bound to think that, but I've come to think there is a lot more villain-loving going on among the general public that one imagines. Perhaps it's not a new phenomenon either: "Dombey and Son" outsold "Vanity Fair", in spite of the latter having the "f" factor (in the shape of Becky Sharp) in spades. When it comes to the "v" factor, though, few books can beat "Dombey and Son".

In the "Little Dorrit" adaptation, everyone did what they could with the villains assigned to them, but the fact remains that Merdle is a nobody, and knows it; Henry Gowan is vicious, which is excusable, and a lazy Steerforthian, which is not; Mr Flintwinch is a sidekick (if a self-willed one); Mr Casby is an interesting idea - how much meanness can a man get away with as long as he looks and seems benign? - more than a character and Rigaud is plain annoying. In the book, it is the villainesses - Mrs Clennam and Miss Wade - who really possess the field. It is because of Mrs Clennam's pain that even a hardened villain-lover like myself cannot approve of Rigaud, just as Mr Bulstrode's similar agonies in "Middlemarch" turn one against the awful Raffles. Now villainesses are all very well, but who's there for a straight, female villain-lover like me to sigh over? Also, if the "Little Dorrit" adaptation has a fault, it is that it could have done more with these two female characters (and with Flora, actually - but she's not part of this argument). Judy Parfitt was a perfect Mrs Clennam, but the character's back-story was changed and compressed in a way that didn't really do her justice, and Miss Wade was reduced from being the very personification of self-devouring Dickensian bitterness to a lesbian predator. What remains? Nothing to rival Charles Dance's Mr Tulkinghorn or Phil Davis's Smallweed (Smallweed is rather small beer villain-wise in the book - hence the name - but Davis is so good I almost suspect Andrew Davies and Co. to have enlarged the part for his benefit.)

I realise my theory has holes. Austen costume dramas, for instance, are the most popular of all, and their "v" factor is practically zilch - General Tilney is as close as you come. All the same, I think a fascinating villain helps to promote a drama not only in my eyes, but generally. I'm sure the "Dombey and Son" adaptation that never was would have caught on famously. Try telling that to the Beeb, though.