The Night Manager

[Petrushka]

Yes, JleC does appear later.

Whether he approves of the TV adaptation or not does not necessarily make it an acceptable adaptation - of the BOOK, IMO.

Do agree! This is what set Tinker, Tailor... and Smiley's People apart from usual TV adaptations: they were like having the book faithfully reproduced on screen.

[Serial_Apologist]

Do agree! This is what set Tinker, Tailor... and Smiley's People apart from usual TV adaptations: they were like having the book faithfully reproduced on screen.

I have those on 4 VHSs, but they're both available on DVD for about £7.99 in all; I'm considering getting them.

[Richard Tarleton]

Do agree! This is what set Tinker, Tailor... and Smiley's People apart from usual TV adaptations: they were like having the book faithfully reproduced on screen.

Adam Sisman interesting on the stories behind the various TV and big screen adaptations - nearly all the books have been adapted, with varying degrees of success, one or two getting no further than the film rights or screenplay stage. They have varied wildly in quality - the film of The Tailor of Panama (co-written by Andrew Davies ) was "inexplicably poor", The Little Drummer Girl "the nadir of his movie career...blighted above all by a disastrous bit of miscasting" (Diane Keaton). For me the TV TTSS was something of an exception - I hated the latest film (with Gary Oldman), and "A Most Wanted Man" was spoilt by mumbled dialogue.

[DracoM]

Feel sorry for Oldman in a way having to follow Guinness - THE quintessential Smiley. TTSS2 not a patch on the BBC series.

[Richard Tarleton]

I think this is shaping up very nicely, and give or take the odd change of gender or location is sticking closely to the spirit of the book. Actually I think Hugh Laurie does menace pretty well - he's such an accomplished actor I don't find it a problem parking Bertie W and the Prince Regent. And no I haven't seen House either . AA Gill unreservedly ecstatic in the ST yesterday, which is rare.

[Barbirollians]

Watchable claptrap .

[DracoM]

BUT the book is NOT claptrap, fortunately. I am even more gobsmacked at JLeC's approval of this 'adaptation'.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I watched the first half of the first episode on i-Player - I wasn't "gripped", and had the general feeling that I'd seen it before. I intended to come back to watch the rest, but never felt the need to. Last night clashed with Gambon (and Duncan and Garai) - no chance of my missing that!

[jean]

... Last night clashed with Gambon (and Duncan and Garai) - no chance of my missing that!

Is it worth a thread of its own?

[Richard Tarleton]

Watchable claptrap .

Can you define your terms a bit more Barbs, and let us know where you're coming from, to help understand what you mean? How do you think it compares with other JLeC adaptations/other stuff currently on telly, how well do you know the book, that sort of thing? Just saying it's claptrap.....

[vinteuil]

Watchable claptrap.

By which I mean - well, it's very watchable : pretty ladies, hunky men, glamorous locations, lush photography, a plot which makes you want to know what happens next ... Watchable in the same way that the recent 'War and Peace' was.

Claptrap - perhaps a bit severe : but the bar of expectation is set so high for telly watchers and le Carré - and this has none of the delicious grey subtle ambiguities of the Smiley ones : it's a wannabe 007 (cf: "pretty ladies, hunky men, glamorous locations, lush photography, a plot which makes you want to know what happens next." ) The baddies are out-an'-out baddies : not just Roper but clearly the high-ups in MI6 ; the goodies are just such goodies. The convent-educated Mme v (who has read the book) agrees; she says that in the book there is some interest in the Catholic guilt playing out in the conscience of the convent-educated Roper's moll - but we don't seem to have that here (yet?).

But we're enjoying it and will go on watching...

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/claptrap

[Richard Tarleton]

and this has none of the delicious grey subtle ambiguities of the Smiley ones : it's a wannabe 007 (cf: "pretty ladies, hunky men, glamorous locations, lush photography, a plot which makes you want to know what happens next." )

Not wanting to flog this to death, but I wonder (a question for Mme V) how much that's also/mainly a comment on the book? Having read every Le C from The Spy Who... onwards as it came out [I read the first two out of sequence, along with most people, and confess I gave Naive and Sentimental Lover a miss], I remember The Night Manager was a jolting change of pace, tone, direction.... Not being convent educated I've forgotten the catholic guilt bit in TNM but connect at all sorts of levels with the autobiographical aspects of the novels... It's almost exactly 50 years since David Cornwell came to speak to a small group of us at school, somewhere between The Looking Glass War and A Small Town in Germany

[Nick Armstrong]

I think this is shaping up very nicely, and give or take the odd change of gender or location is sticking closely to the spirit of the book. Actually I think Hugh Laurie does menace pretty well - he's such an accomplished actor I don't find it a problem parking Bertie W and the Prince Regent. And no I haven't seen House either . AA Gill unreservedly ecstatic in the ST yesterday, which is rare.

Yes - I agree with all that. I was expecting problems as mentioned upthread, but the Laurie character of old Etonian with the charm but a heart of evil is working for me. I'm even buying 'Rev' as a camp psycho! I was coming here to wax enthusiastic about episode 2 - classy stuff, and compulsively watchable. I haven't read this book, but it's conveying the thing that Le Carré does well in other stories, of the lonely cost of developing and sustaining 'cover' as an isolated agent.

it's a wannabe 007 (cf: "pretty ladies, hunky men, glamorous locations, lush photography, a plot which makes you want to know what happens next." )

Well I've always been a sucker for the works of Mr Fleming writ glamorous on screen (ever since watching 'Live and Let Die' as a nipper in a cinema on a rainy day on holiday in Scarborough!)

[vinteuil]

AA Gill unreservedly ecstatic in the ST yesterday, which is rare.

Hugo Rifkind was equally enthusiastic - I think his review was better (meatier, more specific) than AA Gill's : I particularly liked -

"These people exist, that’s the thing, and the magic of Le Carré is how well he seems to know them. They’re the backdrop of those grainy photographs you’ll see when George Osborne or Peter Mandelson meet oligarchs on a yacht. They do own their own islands, and they do make a killing, and they did go to Eton, and you haven’t ever heard of any of them. Brilliantly done. I’m so glad it’s on."

[Barbirollians]

Watchable claptrap.

By which I mean - well, it's very watchable : pretty ladies, hunky men, glamorous locations, lush photography, a plot which makes you want to know what happens next ... Watchable in the same way that the recent 'War and Peace' was.

Claptrap - perhaps a bit severe : but the bar of expectation is set so high for telly watchers and le Carré - and this has none of the delicious grey subtle ambiguities of the Smiley ones : it's a wannabe 007 (cf: "pretty ladies, hunky men, glamorous locations, lush photography, a plot which makes you want to know what happens next." ) The baddies are out-an'-out baddies : not just Roper but clearly the high-ups in MI6 ; the goodies are just such goodies. The convent-educated Mme v (who has read the book) agrees; she says that in the book there is some interest in the Catholic guilt playing out in the conscience of the convent-educated Roper's moll - but we don't seem to have that here (yet?).

But we're enjoying it and will go on watching...

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/claptrap

Thanks - you spared me a post ! Just what I meant