Reduced Expectations

The other day, I paid a hefty sum for two large DVD box sets full of old TV series based on Dickens novels, thinking I was replacing the ones I had on video. It turns out most of them might actually be other, even more ancient adaptations. Apparently, there was a time when the BBC couldn't get enough of Dickens. Honestly, are there really two "Martin Chuzzlewit" adaptations out there? Phew - it's a good thing I'm such a fanatic. I'm especially looking forward to a "David Copperfield" where young David, if the cover is anything to go by, looks like Little Lord Fauntleroy.

It's a sad fact that most of the classic adaptations made in the Eighties really are for die-hard fans only. There are some that are still exceptional - "Jane Eyre" with Zelah Clarke and Timothy Dalton, say, and "Oliver Twist" with Eric Porter as a brilliant Fagin. (Fagin, Moriarty and Soames: what a hat trick! Porter is truly one of the greatest villain actors of all time.) But there's no denying that TV drama in those days - though often extremely well-acted - was severely lacking in pace. The irony is that now, when British television has really got the hang of making exciting, pacy period dramas without stinting on the length - like the latest "Bleak House" and "Little Dorrit" - they seem to have lost interest in the Classics. They prefer modern authors, and expect us costume drama fans to be thrilled when these authors deign to set their books in olden times. I'm sure "The Crimson Petal and the White" is very good in its way - its author, Michael Faber, has had the good taste to speak up for the Victorians, which is nice - but I'd rather watch a new first-class adaptation of a novel by Dickens, or Collins, or even Trollope.

Mind you, not all recent classic costume dramas are solid gold. Just think of the latest "Oliver Twist" by the BBC. What a train-wreck that was. Oliver was a bolshie boy who might well have joined Fagin's gang without blinking, only he didn't like being tricked and having his mother's name bandied about, so he preferred sulking. Fagin was suddenly an Orthodox Jew (Dickens's Fagin was an apostate who sent the Rabbis away when they tried to see him in prison), who with sad nobility rejected a Merchant in Venice-like deal to have his crimes pardoned if he converted. A somewhat strange view of the justice system of 19th-century England, you might think, especially as Fagin was judged by Fang - the same magistrate who handled Oliver's petty-pilfering case. Monks behaved like a sort-of-Dickensian-villain - dutifully making a pass at the heroine, for example - but not like Monks himself, and his powerful motive was fatally watered down. Maybe worst of all, Nancy was depicted as a cuddly day-care employee, a far cry from Dickens's hard-bitten prostitute who really struggles with herself before her better nature compels her to help Oliver. I sincerely hope this sugar-coating of the Nancy character was not due to the fact that the actress who played her - Sophie Okonedo, who deserved a better part - happened to be black. That would be too patronising for words. The historical setting was not more convincing than the interpretation of Dickens's characters. At one point, a woman in the workhouse hesitates to help Oliver's mother (with posting a letter, I think) because she's not sure it's "her place". Eh, what? Does she think she's too grand, or too humble for the task? Is she waiting for the second footman to turn up?

And it turns out the BBC are setting the same script-writer on the new "Great Expectations". Ah well. Maybe the Golden Age of Costume Drama is actually over - for the present.