Wicked Witch variations part 2: Elphaba the natural-born rebel (Wicked book version)

Now I've read Wicked by Gregory Maguire, what surprises me the most is not any liberties taken with the source material (primarily Baum's The Wizard of Oz and to some extent the movie version) but how much it differs from the musical Wicked and later film versions of said musical. It's not just the tone, it's the whole thing, plot and characters included. Don't read Wicked if you're a fan of the musical and/or films and are looking to get a fleshed-out version of their story, because this is completely different. One reviewer claimed that basically only the names of their characters are the same, and well... they're not far wrong.

Is the book worth reading for its own sake, then? Yes, I'd say so, albeit hesitantly. Authors aren't normally too pleased when their writing is called "interesting", but this is just that, an interesting novel. I admire Maguire for not going down the easy route when it comes to retelling a story from the villain's point of view. He doesn't make the Wicked Witch (whom he names Elphaba, reputedly after Frank L. Baum) out to be some wronged saint. She is very difficult, and ends up behaving much worse towards Dorothy and Co. – and other characters that get on the wrong side of her – than she needs to. The Wicked Witch isn't so much exonerated as fleshed out as a character, which is (theoretically) the right way to go with these kind of stories.

Also, props to Maguire for doing his homework properly. Unlike (I strongly suspect) the makers of the Wicked musical and films, he has clearly read up on the original Oz novels instead of just watching the movie. Wicked is full of references to the land Baum created, though that's not to say his Oz is much like Baum's version (I think I can safely say as much after having read only one of the original Oz novels). When Maguire brings part of the movie version of events into his novel, it's a conscious choice rather than a result of ignorance. 

For instance, of course Elphaba has to be green-skinned, we'd hardly recognise the Wicked Witch otherwise. She is also two-eyed, for convenience's sake (though there are some oblique references to where the telescopic one-eye idea might have come from), and the Wicked Witch of the East is her sister. I can buy all that, though I don't understand why Maguire cooks up his own back story for the Flying Monkeys (or Winged Monkeys), as they already have one in Baum's The Wizard of Oz. He also keeps the conflating of the two Good Witches of the North and South into one, which is a bit hard on Glinda who (as in the movie, but not the original book) gets to be the one to gift Dorothy the contentious shoes.

To keep to the negative virtues a little longer, we are spared the musical's forced back stories to the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman/Tinman, which were at odds with the original story and saddled Dorothy with the company of a bastard (the Tinman), an ingrate (the Lion) and a double agent (the Scarecrow). Though Dorothy's gang aren't very nicely portrayed in a (rather unnecessary) Prologue scene, they nevertheless keep their original back stories and functions. The Lion's story does have points in common with that of the musical version, but mercifully he doesn't believe has a "grievance to repay" towards someone who has shown him nothing but kindness. 

The love triangles from the musical/musical films are also absent, thankfully. Believe it or not, Fiyero (not a spoiled public-school brat, no) and Boq are actually likeable in the novel, and neither of them courts one girl while yearning for another. Fiyero is never involved with Glinda, and Boq leaves Nessarose (armless rather than in a wheelchair) alone.

So much for what the novel doesn't do, and the pitfalls it avoids. But what kind of story does it tell? Here's where my hesitation comes in. The story is rather oddly constructed into sections with big time jumps in between, while the intervening years' events have to be explained in exposition or flashbacks. The prose is sometimes a bit knotty, especially if you're a non-native speaker. There are questions of a philosophical nature that are, perhaps, given a little too much space at the cost of good old-fashioned storytelling. On the other hand, Maguire takes the time to let his characters talk through political and religious themes which other authors might just have served up to us as black-and-white. For instance, when Elphaba's political activism leans towards terrorism, Fiyero (by then her lover) calls her out on it.

My three main problems with the novel can be summed up as follows: the depiction of Oz, the depiction of the Wizard and, to some extent, the main character herself. Maguire's Oz never feels particularly beguiling or magical. Dorothy's probably far better off in Kansas, quite irrespective of Uncle Henry and Aunt Em. As for the Wizard, of course he's the villain of this version of the story (while Dorothy, you'll be relieved to hear, comes out of it all quite well). I expected that, and indeed the original book gave us little reason to think well of him. But I think Maguire goes too far in casting him as an out-and-out tyrant who doesn't even try to be charming. 

In this instance, I feel the musical and its film versions stole a march on Maguire. Yes, I realise the dire state of Oz and the Wizard's oppression are largely his point, but it's a shame that they're so obvious. In the musical, something bad is happening in Oz and the Wizard is a crook, but it happens under the surface. On a surface level, everything is bright and enticing enough to fool visitors like Dorothy, part of the populace and for a time even Elphaba. As for the Wizard, he is given a dangerous folksy charm. That's far more intriguing than everyone knowing he's a wrong'un.

As for Elphaba, I quite liked her in the section of the novel where she goes to University with Galinda/Glinda (the name change is surprisingly even more poorly explained than in the musical and films). After a while, though, her relentless crankiness started to be wearisome. It's easier to warm to Elphaba in the musical, of whom I'll write more in a future post. Maguire's Elphaba is never disappointed with the Wizard, because she never expected anything good from him. Instead, she takes to the rebel life with gusto – she is more comfortable being against something than for something anyway.

Ultimately, though, she is interesting, as is the novel. But it's not something for girls who enthusiastically dress up as the musical Elphaba for Halloween. Be warned: this Wicked Witch is for adults only.

Wicked Witch variations part 1: The Wizard of Oz, the book and movie

So I had this ambitious idea for a blog post, where I gave an overview of the Chinese whispers that led us from a Wicked Witch of the West who was clearly villainous and not even green (as this exposé on YouTube told me: at this time in my planning I hadn't read the book yet) to the almost aggressively righteous Elphaba in the films Wicked and Wicked: For Good (based on Wicked the musical, but even more Wicked Witch-friendly). I've realised, though, that I have to split this topic into two or more parts, as there's a lot to unpack with all these different Oz versions. For one, Wicked the book, which I'm reading now, is nothing like the musical or the films – but I'll come back to that in a later blog post.

Let's start at the beginning. I didn't grow up with L. Frank Baum's Oz books, and have still only read the first one, The Wizard of Oz. Checking out the original of a much-told story is often a lot of fun, and given blog material, but still I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this children's classic. It was really charming: the characters, though not super complex, were likeable, the writing style beguiling and Oz itself properly intriguing. It's not a book that overstays its welcome, either. It made me curious about the other Oz books, although there are rather a lot of them. I'm not sure I'm curious enough to read them all.

It has to be said, though, that the original Wicked Witch version is not the most memorable one. She's a functional villain, much in the style of, say, the witch in Hansel and Gretel, but she doesn't have that much of a personality. Also, she's not so central to the plot as in the movie, as Dorothy's adventures carry on for a bit after she has defeated the witch before she can finally go home. Here are some things about the original Wicked Witch that may surprise you:

1) She's not green
2) She only has one eye
3) She's not, as far as we know, related to the Wicked Witch of the East
4) She doesn't show up demanding the magic slippers from Dorothy, or indeed show up at all during Dorothy's trek to the Emerald City. It's only when Dorothy and her companions are on their way to kill her that she makes her presence felt (though it's clear she wants those slippers too).

Already, there's something more than a little off about the Wizard's behaviour: he sends a child on an assassination mission, and has no reason to believe the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman (as the original Tinman is called) and the Cowardly Lion will be much help. On the face of it, although we have no reason to doubt the Witch's wickedness, she is at least partly acting in self-defence. Taken all in all, though, although the Wizard's case is not strong, neither is the Wicked Witch's. She is mostly a stock character and an obstacle for Dorothy and Co. to overcome.

The reason the Wicked Witch of the West has become such an iconic villain has to be all down to the movie The Wizard of Oz and how she's depicted there. (I think it's fair to stick with the term movie rather than film: movies don't come more American than The Wizard of Oz.) Margaret Hamilton's portrayal is a delight: here is a villain who relishes her wickedness in true Beagle Boy fashion. Here, we finally get the greenness too, as well as the broom and the cackling. The movie's framing device, where it's implied that Oz was all a dream and the characters Dorothy meets are versions of the people she knows in Kansas, helps to reinforce the Witch's role as a thoroughly bad lot: in the "real world", she's the termagant who wants to put Toto down (though not entirely without reason).

This so-not-in-the-book framing device serves to make the best case yet for the Wizard, too. Whereas in the book it's hard to believe him when he claims he is "a good man, though a bad wizard", it's easier in the movie. This is because his "real world" counterpart is the fortune-teller mountebank who out of kindness tricks Dorothy (who's on the run) to return home to her worried aunt. The Wizard's way of "giving" the Scarecrow, the Tinman and the Lion the characteristics they unknowingly already possess is also cleverer than in the book, although the moral is the same.

And yet... probably without meaning to, the movie manages to strengthen the Wicked Witch's case to some degree. In this version of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the East is her sister, and she has a far better claim to the magic slippers than Dorothy. That Dorothy is hailed for killing the Wicked Witch of the East and readily takes credit for it (although it's hardly her doing that her house happened to fall on the luckless witch) only makes matters worse. 

Like many other heroes and heroines of children's books, Dorothy is dropped down in the middle of a conflict she has no information about, and has to have explained to her by what one can only hope are the good guys. But how good are the Munchkins really? "Ding-Dong the Witch is Dead" is a really creepy song. And the slipper-stealing Glinda (in the book another good witch – Glinda only shows up towards the end there), can she really be trusted?

These slightly-off aspects of Oz – the gleeful celebration of a woman's death, the slipper stealing, the Wizard's assassination mission (admittedly, not as unprovoked in the movie version), the fact that he's a fake – could possibly form the foundations for a revisionist retelling of the story. How well did Gregory Maguire, and later the musical and the films, manage it? That's a subject for another time. Although I have to say, nothing the musical, the films or (so far) the book has served up can really top "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too" for me.

"What if fairy tales are real?" – now with cops

There is a quote from the animated series Phineas and Ferb which is often paraphrased like this: "If I had a nickel for every time [X happened] I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice." I understand why this quote is so popular, because it's genius. I for my part often imagine I can see certain trends in contemporary life, but when I have to come up with examples I can only think of two. Which is too little to positively point at a trend, and yet...

The TV series Grimm, airing 2011-2017 and currently on Amazon Prime where I'm catching up with it, is a typical two-nickel-phenomenon. What's even weirder than that there should be two American TV series airing in the 2010s with a "What if fairy tales are real?" premise, and specifically referencing the Grimm fairy tales before later branching out to all kinds of fantastical stories, is that Grimm and Once Upon A Time should be so different. 

They're both good, though. I actually started watching Grimm when it was on Netflix, but only an episode now and again, as it suffered somewhat from my ongoing Once obsession. However, the solid craft that has gone into making Grimm eventually won me over. It will never cater to my unhealthy fairy-tale villain crushes (well, when I say "crushes" I mean... mostly one) the way Once does, but that doesn't stop it from being extremely watchable. Once I realised this, Grimm had disappeared from Netflix, and I had to buy the DVDs to carry on my watching. Whereupon, shortly afterwards, it appeared again on Amazon.

So if Grimm isn't like Once, what is it about? The premise is almost as crazy in its way as Once's. Nick Burkhardt, a handsome, dedicated homicide cop in Portland, Oregon, is told by his dying aunt that he belongs to a family who has hunted different kinds of dangerous creatures, Wesen, for centuries. He's a "Grimm" (yep, in this reality the peaceful story-collecting brothers were monster hunters). Wesen mostly look like normal humans, but a Grimm can see what they are underneath when they are under stress and can't hide their true selves from a trained eye. Nick would probably assume that his aunt had gone barmy, only he has been seeing the oddest things lately... and then someone tries to kill his aunt.

Most of what follows are murder cases with a wesen (I'll go lower-case from now on) component, although there are also overarching story arcs. Nick swiftly learns that his ancestors were way too harsh with their wesen-slashing. In fact, wesens aren't unlike humans: some are good eggs, some are definitely bad news. Nick is lucky enough to early on come across super-good egg Monroe, a clock-mender who also happens to be a wolf-like wesen called Blutbad (yeah... I'll come back to the use of German terms later). 

They strike up a friendship, and Nick learns to use his talents for the good of wesen and non-wesen alike. Only, he has to come up with ways of solving crimes without letting anyone know the clues he gets from seeing suspects and witnesses turn into different kinds of creatures (from cute to downright scary) before his eyes.

It goes without saying that a concept where fairy tales are (partly) explained by the existence of "creatures" isn't as satisfying for a fairy-tale fan as the premise that actual characters such as the Evil Queen exist. Some of the earlier Grimm cases do take their cue from some particular fairy tale, and there's a fairy-tale- or folklore-related quote preceding every episode, which is classy. The show's real strength, though, lies elsewhere. 

While I was still grumbling over the somewhat haphazard way German phrases were used in order to explain various wesen (always pronounced with a short "e" in the series, for some reason) phenomena, I couldn't help appreciating the fun cop banter between Nick, his partner (in the professional sense!) Hank and the cynical Wu, who always brings the sass. The light-hearted police procedural part of the plot has remained strong throughout the seasons I've watched (I'm now at the beginning of season five). It's impressive how many variations the show manages on the wesen theme – sometimes they're perps, sometimes victims, and the dangerous monster isn't always who you think it is. There are plenty of amusing mini-whodunnits along the way.

The overarching storylines are more varied in quality, but are carried along by a cast of likeable protagonists. Nick is a bit of a clean slate at times, but has the core of decency a hero needs. Hank is a great mate, and Wu somewhat of a personal favourite of mine. But the big friendship prize goes to Monroe, who is there for Nick time and time again, through tough cases as well as personal hardships. It's a good thing that Nick saves his life once or twice, because he owes Monroe big time. Also, Monroe and his later girlfriend Rosalee (a Fuchsbau, that is, fox-like wesen) are unbelievably cute together, plus she is also extremely helpful to Nick. Monroe and Rosalee may be the most shippable couple on telly – perhaps even beating Snow and Charming in Once.

When it comes to girlfriends, though, Nick has a harder time of it, which leads me to a storyline the show handles less well. Nick's girlfriend Juliette has to put up with a lot and is actually often very supportive in trying circumstances. Nevertheless, I never really warmed to this particular romance, and judging from various IMDB reviews I wasn't the only one. Perhaps there is a certain imbalance – Nick seems to need Juliette more than she needs him, and although she stands by him through various surreal trials that would have most girls running for the hills she never accepts his marriage proposal. Maybe a certain coolness from the fans led to poor old Juliette being completely shafted in season four, which I still think is unfair. 

If Nick ends up with someone else than Juliette in the end, though, there will honestly be no complaints from me. But the script writers had better not come between Monroe and Rosalee – that would be a shootable-by-crossbow-arrows offence.

Former friends turned enemies – an irresistible trope (at least for me)

Last week was exhausting, which means I'm a bit late with my blogging. Even now, I'm reaching for the easy option blog-wise. Instead of explaining why Pixar's Hoppers is really watchable and not at all the simplistic "Man the Destroyer" fable I had feared (my least favourite cliché or trope, together with "Eat the rich", and "Who are the monsters here"), I'm going to write about Young Sherlock on Prime.

There's no shortage of films or TV projects that want to hitch a ride on the Sherlock train without having much – if anything – to do with the great detective as described by Arthur Conan Doyle. I've mentioned these Holmesian rip-offs a number of times: the Guy Ritchie movies, the Enola Holmes atrocity (I never did watch the second film), The Irregulars on Netflix. Young Sherlock is undoubtedly the same kind of thing. And yet, as with The Irregulars, I ended up enjoying the series on its own terms, even if it is far from "the spirit of the original". 

I'm not going to go into the matter of why Holmes's good name keeps getting exploited again, as it's well-trodden ground. Instead I'll concentrate on another aspect of the series, the irresistible hook that kept me watching even though the banter of the first couple of episodes was pretty tired. In Young Sherlock, we see the future detective teaming up with an Irish Oxford undergraduate called – drum roll – James Moriarty.

Predictable? Yes. Wonderfully inventive? Not really. But it doesn't need to be. I'm a sucker for a story showing how the hero and his arch-enemy used to be friends. It's why I once sat through an enormously long film (which I think was meant as a TV series, something the DVD I rented did not make clear) called Neverland. It's why I've started to watch the TV series Smallville, in spite of having zero investment in the Superman universe (I'm admittedly only two episodes in, but so far Lex is being a great pal to Clark). It's why Master episodes in Doctor Who appeal to me, in spite of The Master being a bit too chaotic a villain for my liking. The friends-turned-enemies trope is "You and I are not so different" and the hero-villain team-up rolled into one, and I love it.

Admittedly, it could be more cleverly done than in Young Sherlock. You have to ask yourself why a Holmes-Moriarty team-up is so appealing when Holmes isn't behaving noticeably like Holmes and Moriarty isn't behaving noticeably like Moriarty. This Sherlock mostly resembles the Guy Ritchie movie version of Sherlock Holmes in his youth, which makes sense as Guy Ritchie directed some of this TV show's episodes as well. Young Moriarty is charming, full or Irish blarney and has some unscrupulousness about him, but there's little hint of a future criminal mastermind at work, or for that matter a future Mathematics Professor. They are less two geniuses trying to think their way to a solution to their problems, and more two boisterous young men who get into scrapes.

There are some hints that these are bright young lads, admittedly, and that they are uniquely on each other's wave length. While we don't get scenes where Sherlock rattles off brilliant deductions, we do see his power of observation, illustrated by time slowing down while he takes in all the details in a scene or a room. Intriguingly, we see Moriarty joining him in these moments, while he follows the same trains of thought. He is the only one who can enter young Sherlock's "mind palace" (to borrow a concept from BBC's Sherlock).

All in all, though, the show's main charm comes not from any impressive detective work on the part of the protagonists, but more from being a ripping yarn. I was a little doubtful during the first episodes, but when the series switches focus to an unsolved mystery from Sherlock's childhood, the plot thickens and becomes more gripping. However, there are no prizes for guessing who the ultimate Big Bad is (not Colin Firth's blunt Empire builder, no), and the motivation of at least one important character remains something of a mystery. 

This is not the kind of show that makes you feel clever for watching it. But if a 19th-century caper involving two bright hotheads, a female Chinese assassin, a former asylum inmate who (naturally) turns out not to be mad at all and the stiff straight man trying to keep some control over the situation sounds fun to you, you could do worse than giving Young Sherlock a watch. After all, Conan Doyle himself appreciated a good adventure story.                      

Ballet Shoes: The first "shoe" book, and the best (probably)

What to do when a book post is due, but you go through your self-indulgence reads much faster than your slightly more ambitious ones? Try to write about the self-indulgence reads, of course – not that that's necessarily easy, especially when it's a classic like Noel Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes (yes, her name is spelled like that: Kathleen in You've Got Mail got it right).

Recently, I tore through Streatfeild books like a maniac, starting with a reread of the Gemma books (sadly out of print) and then moving on to other old favourites. Ballet Shoes was the book that started it all, and the reason a number of Streatfeild books were reissued with shoe-related names like Theatre Shoes (originally Curtain Up), Skating Shoes (aka White Boots) and my favourite marketing tour de force, Travelling Shoes (for Apple Bough). As far as I can make out, this ploy started during Streatfeild's life time, so she must have approved, though I can imagine her being quite sardonic about it.

Anyway, it only makes sense to profit from the goodwill of Ballet Shoes. It is a classic for a reason, and sets the tone for many of Streatfeild's subsequent books that deal with similar themes and, to some extent, characters. Nana in Ballet Shoes is pretty much the same character as Hannah in Curtain Up/Theatre Shoes and Nana in White Boots/Skating Shoes, though they are supposed to be different women, and as late as in the Gemma books Lydia Robinson's single-mindedness when it comes to her dancing is reminiscent of Posy Fossil's.

Ballet Shoes, then, is very much the place to start if you want to try Streatfeild. Rereading it as an adult, I'm gripped by it in the same way as when I first read it (or rather, had it read to me) as a child. Or perhaps not precisely in the same way: you dive into a fictional world more whole-heartedly as a kid, while your adult self can't help being a little more analytical. Not necessarily more critical, mind you, but instead of just accepting the magic you nod and think "that was pretty well thought-out".

When I was a child, the lives of the three adopted Fossil girls with their different talents seemed like sheer wish-fulfilment. What I notice as an adult is that these kids work hard. There's precious little leisure in their lives even before they start earning money, at the age of twelve. The genteel poverty also hits home a little more forcefully. As a child, I was apt to groan "what, again?" when new audition frocks were needed; it didn't seem so many chapters ago that Pauline got a new one and everyone had to be ingenious in order to drum up the money. What I'd plain forgotten was that all of poor Petrova's birthday money is spent on those new frocks – and she doesn't even like stage work.

Dare I say it, the three girls seem to work quite a bit harder than their guardian Sylvia aka Garnie who, though very sweet, is rather a passive character. Yes, she runs a boarding house, but she is helped by a cook and maid and (the unpaid) Nana. As for any decision-making, it's up to Nana and the incredibly helpful boarders. I understand better now why Sylvia feels guilty about accepting the girls' money, and why she was saddled with a chest complaint in the TV adaptation of Ballet Shoes, in order to make her more in need of looking after.

Luckily Pauline and Posy Fossil take to acting and dancing respectively and consequently don't mind the hard work. The arrangement is toughest for engine-obsessed Petrova, who doesn't enjoy her time at The Children's Academy for Dancing and Stage Training run by Madame Fidolia one bit. Here, the old childhood magic holds, though, because I still think Madame Fidolia's Academy sounds absolutely wonderful and can't really pity someone for "having" to go there. 

Both in Ballet Shoes and in Curtain Up, the conceit that the child protagonists "have" to enlist at the Academy in order to make money grates a little. Yes, in both cases, two-thirds of the enlisted children soon feel at home, but they're not allowed to join simply because they want to go on the stage. It riled me as a stage-struck child and it riles me still. (I may get back to Curtain Up in the future; I think I could fill half a blog post with ranting about how the clearly talented and imaginative Mark gives up stage life for nonsensical reasons, encouraged by his sister who should know better.)

Is Ballet Shoes Streatfeild's best book? That's debatable: after all, it is her debut book, and in later books her trademark humour and Streatfeildisms are more in evidence (candidly revealing what the characters actually think rather than what they're supposed to think). White Boots is in many ways a more complex story, what with all the intricate plots the grown-up characters think of in order to keep the friendship of Lalla and Harriet intact. However, you can't beat Ballet Shoes when it comes to the atmosphere and set-up: whether in the Academy or in the Fossils' ramshackle home, this is a fictional world you want to spend lots of time in.                    

A fine year for Austen adaptations? Who knows...

I have to confess to feeling pretty tired today, too tired – as it turns out – for any analytical thinking. Even searching reviews of old children's classics are beyond me (I will get to the three best "shoe books" by Noel Streatfeild eventually). But when I have no energy to bellyache over future costume dramas, then all hope is truly lost, so I'll try that.

According to a video I caught on YouTube, 2026 will be a big year for Austen adaptations. The claim was made on the strength of two TV series and one film – one of the TV series is already airing (in Great Britain, if not here in Sweden) and the other two projects are in the pipeline. The simple question to answer, which even I should manage in my knackered state, is: do they look as if they'll be any good?

The Other Bennet Sister: Not really an Austen adaptation, but taking place in the Austen universe, as it were, as it's an adaptation of Janice Hadlow's novel with the same name. I really liked the novel  when I read it a couple of years ago; it made a good case for Mary Bennet without vilifying the other characters. The clips I've seen have looked promising, and the one review I've read so far was very positive indeed. 

There is a risk, of course, that the adaptation will overplay its hand when it comes to decrying the precarious position of Regency women. Not that it wasn't precarious, but I find I'm becoming more and more irritated with period dramas which tut-tut too loudly over the past (and I didn't have much patience with them to begin with). All the same, I'm cautiously looking forward to The Other Bennet Sister.

Pride and Prejudice on Netflix: Netflix doesn't have the best track record when it comes to Austen adaptations. This looks like a more serious attempt than the insane Persuasion from a few years back, though. Weighty actor names have been secured for it: I may be suffering slightly from Olivia Colman fatigue, but there's no denying she's a solid choice for Mrs Bennet, and I can't wait to see Rufus Sewell's Mr Bennet (is Mr Bennet really allowed to be more attractive than the story's love interests?) and Fiona Shaw's Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

What of the central couple, then? Here, I'm more wary. Emma Corrin was a great Princess Diana in The Crown, and made for an amusingly chaotic villain in Deadpool and Wolverine. However, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Corrin got the part of Elizabeth Bennet before announcing themselves to be non-binary. Lizzy Bennet is all woman, and casting an actor in the role who doesn't commit to womanhood is something of an insult to us gals. Corrin could still be good, though.

If you think that's a shallow argument for doubting someone's suitability for a part, then how about this? Jack Lowden, judging from the pictures I've managed to unearth on IMDB, looks nothing like I imagine Mr Darcy. Still, for all I know, he could be a brilliant actor who will carry it off. Also, a spot of hair dye did wonders for Colin Firth, so maybe they'll use the same treatment here? I'm all for ginger men as a rule, but Mr Darcy is... not ginger.

This adaptation of Pride and Prejudice will be worth a watch, even if, as I think we can assume, it won't be able to hold a candle to the BBC version. But as it's a straightforward adaptation of Austen's most beloved book (though I'm more fond of Emma myself), the risk that it'll crash and burn is much higher  than with The Other Bennet Sister.

Sense and Sensibility: Before the aforementioned YouTube video, I had no idea this film was coming out this year, or even existed. For me it's an unknown quantity, which in itself is pretty exciting. The only name I recognised from the cast list was Fiona Shaw, again, in the very different from Lady Catherine role of Mrs Jennings. The casting director hasn't been too lazy but has gone for more unknown names (either that or I'm just hopelessly out of touch), and I respect that.

Now, if there's one thing that's harder to pull off than making a TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that can be mentioned on the same day as the Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth one, it's making a new Sense and Sensibility film when the perfection of the 1995 film exists. All the same, it should be possible to put a slightly different spin on the source material. Sense and Sensibility isn't such a polished product of a novel as Pride and Prejudice, but that can give an adapter a little more leeway.

Not much is known, and much can go wrong, but I'll watch this – as well as the other adaptations, naturally. Be prepared for much bellyaching if they prove to be horrible.

All right, season four of Bridgerton is actually pretty good

Has it come to this? Am I really reduced to blogging about Bridgerton?

As has perhaps become apparent, I'm not the greatest fan of this sumptuous smash hit of a Netflix series. That it should be my kind of thing has only made me more irritated with it when it's fallen short. To be honest, though, my biggest gripe with the show is not the languid pacing (wafer-thin main plots drawn out over eight hour-long episodes per season) or its shallow characterisation but the baleful influence the Bridgerton universe has had on costume dramas as a whole.

From the very first trailer, it was clear: this is Regency England, Jim, but not as we know it. Inexplicably, as it seemed then, the Regency ton was depicted as prettily and modishly diverse. It was as anachronistic as if a Rolls Royce had driven through the streets or the Queen had consulted an iPad to keep track of social events. 

The series later made clear that what we were looking at was an alternative universe, one where George III married a feisty African princess called Charlotte instead of a retiring German princess called Charlotte. Still, the conceit has never quite worked for me. Here's the thing: aristocracy is based on heredity. That's why many, including me, aren't frightfully keen on it. The older the family, according to this kind of thinking, the higher the prestige. The real English Regency élite would not have welcomed foreigners from far-off lands, even if they were high-born in their own countries, into their inner circle without a grumble. Much less would they have allowed the interlopers to supplant local families, at least not without a social upheaval equalling the one taking place in France at the same time. No revolution has shaken the Regency society of Bridgerton, however: the social mores of the ton remain what they've always been.

So what of it, you may ask: can't I give this one series a pass? After all, the premise, far-fetched as it is, has allowed the showcasing of talented actors who would otherwise not have been given the opportunity to try their hands at Regency foppery. And yes, I would be prepared to accept Bridgerton on its own terms, if it hadn't been for the domino effect. The show's success has led to even more wildly unhistorical imitations which don't even bother with the alternative-universe excuse, like the Netflix Persuasion or the episode "Rogue" in Doctor Who. Ideology is trumping common sense when it comes to period dramas; you can even see it in high-prestige projects like the final series of Wolf Hall. This is not exclusively Bridgerton's fault, but it makes its self-congratulating tone hard to bear.

All right then, let's say Bridgerton takes place in a realm entirely separate from any historical reality, a little like the fairy-tale realms of Once Upon A Time. How well does the actual drama work? As mentioned, I have been underwhelmed by previous seasons, but season four was a welcome surprise, and not only because it was an adaptation of sorts of the classic Cinderella story, something I am a sucker for. 

Yerin Ha makes an enchanting romantic lead as Sophie. I was less sure about Luke Thompson's Benedict, but their chemistry carried all before it. The episode where they got to know each other under the watchful eyes of Benedict's old retainers, Mr and Mrs Crabtree, while Benedict recovered from an attack at his "cottage" (a minor mansion), was a delight. Elsewhere, the subplots knitted together better than I'm used to from Bridgerton, and the character moments between the Bridgerton family members actually carried some weight. 

I was particularly pleased to see that Eloise, whom I have wanted to like (as Claudia Jessie is quite winning) but who I must admit has been a bit of a pill in previous seasons, was finally mending her ways after having been called out on her self-absorption by her younger sister Hyacinth. When she reconciled with Cressida, a supposed mean girl (more sinned against than sinning in my opinion) who was brutally shafted in the previous season but who now finally gets her happy ending, I could have cheered.

The season ends with a perfect hook. Throughout the series, a gossip sheet penned by "Lady Whistledown" has been a continuing connective plot thread. We got to know, somewhat too early in the series, who the Lady was, but now someone else has taken over the role, unbeknown to the original writer who has given the sheet up. I find myself quite engaged in the mystery. Bridgerton has won me over: just don't confuse it with history.