Rectitude's reward

If there is a common theme to my reading and recent TV viewing, it is sadly not great villains but morally upright men. I'm reading "To Kill A Mockingbird" at the moment, because I wanted to tick at least one more book on the BBC Big Read's list, because I've heard it well spoken of just about everywhere but also, I must admit, because I was expecting a tense courtroom drama. The novel really is excellent, and I'm glad I've got round to reading it, but so far there has not been a single courtroom scene, and I'm almost halfway through it. So far, this is not a thriller with a Message, but a depiction - and a very convincing one, too - of the childhood of Jean Louise "Scout" Finch, the bright, tough daughter of lawyer Atticus Finch.

You can see, of course, that Atticus is admirable, but his effortless occupation of the moral high ground in every question can be a bit hard to take in the long run. Scout and her brother Jem (for Jeremy) will most likely grow up to be very well-behaved and useful members of society as they try to live up to their father's principles, but could the man get off his high horse once in a while and just be a dad? Plus when am I going to see the inside of that courtroom?

The other pillar of rectitude I've encountered lately is John Ridd in the TV dramatisation of "Lorna Doone". But here, the righteousness of the hero comes as a bit of a relief. John and his ladylove Lorna are the least interesting characters in the whole story, as is so often the case with star-crossed lovers in a Romeo-and-Juliet drama which happens not to be "Romeo and Juliet". Making John a conflicted character who had to battle down his desire for revenge against the criminal Doone family at every turn would only have made us impatient with him. Instead, he can at least be counted on to Do The Right Thing even under the most trying circumstances - and, rather upliftingly, his restraint is rewarded and justice is done without the hero having to feel that he has at any time behaved shabbily.

It is the secondary characters who keep your interest up, though, partly because they're played by the elite of British acting, which is rather more than they deserve. "Lorna Doone" is not a subtle drama. A Dickens Christmas story has more shades of grey than this. But the actors do their best. Peter Vaughan gimlet-eyes impressively as the robber baron Sir Ensor Doone; Anton Lesser just about convinces you that he's the clever one among the Doones although he in fact never comes up with any particularly cunning plan; Martin Clunes is so likeable as a food-loving, benevolent officer you can forgive the TV people for somewhat unfairly billing him above the young lovers and Michael Kitchen uses his am-I-the-only-person-with-a-brain-in-the-room pauses to great effect as hanging judge Jeffreys. Poor Martin Jarvis is saddled with playing the weak and corrupt local judge, a part not even he can make much of, although the last shot we see of him is memorable.

Carver Doone, "One of the worst villains of all time" according to the blurb, did nothing for me, I'm afraid. It wasn't the fault of Aidan Gillen who played him - no-one could have made anything of Carver, at least not in this adaptation. He raids and sulks and raids and sulks and then finally earns the worst-villain tag in one, gasp-inducing scene before going to his end, sulkily. Why he should get so hung up about sweet cipher Lorna is anybody's guess. I ended up ogling the corrupt local judge's rotten-to-the-core, pretty-boy son instead: he was dead cute, especially when he sported a plaited Doone hairdo instead of daddy's second-best wig. No noticeable motivation and not many lines, but who cares? Ruthless, underwritten youths are the new black.