"Great Expectations" (BBC1, 2011)

[DracoM]

Travesty seems to be the accumulating verdict of the broadsheet press as well. OK, Lord Patten........what do you think now?

[Norfolk Born]

Yes, I think she did now you mention it. The adaptation was still a travesty of a brilliant novel.

Tonight 21:00 BBC2, Sue Perkins on Mrs. Dickens' Christmas. According to the RT, Dickens was egotistical, fickle and who saw women as virgins or frumps and couldn't cope with anything between the two.

RT also says It's got plenty of laughs

But then, Radio Times said that 'Great Expectations' was 'brilliant..unmissable' and Gillian Anderson was 'mesmerising'.

[DracoM]

But the damn book is NOT about Miss Havisham!! This is what gets me: she is important but funnily enough not quite as pivotal as Pip who needs to be acted with some care and subtlety. The more you read the BBC carp about it, the more you realise that for the triumphant Beeb this is the Gillian Anderson Show and this version of Great Expectations merely a convenient peg on which to hang a decent fee day for La Anderson and bag her for a Christmas BBC One treat, and as FF says, thus tick the box marked high culture, no matter how shabby a tick it was.

THEY clearly think the book is about Miss Havisham, the set designers and production team also think it is judging by the bewildering number of scenes shot there, and I suppose if you have Gillian Anderson, you have to build the show round her guest appearance and what's in her contract.

Erm..........let me just whisper it to you, BBC TV Drama, there's a teeny little clue in the fact that the book is a first person narrative throughout....so erm, guess what, Beeb, it's Pip's story.

[Nick Armstrong]

Travesty seems to be the accumulating verdict of the broadsheet press as well.

Got some links, please? Or at least titles and authors.

I could only find this one covering all 3 episodes: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/t...bbey-ITV1.html

[austin]

And more of the same......

http://tinyurl.com/79665tq

[PatrickOD]

there's a teeny little clue in the fact that the book is a first person narrative throughout....so erm, guess what, Beeb, it's Pip's story.

Which I meantersay, Draco old chap, as I were just remembering as how dear old Pip used to tell me, being as how I don't do much reading, I meantersay as he told me hisself that his story begins right on the first page where he says he called hisself Pip and everybody calls him Pip. If that don't make it Pip's story then I don't know what does. But what would I know?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

But then, Radio Times said that 'Great Expectations' was 'brilliant..unmissable' and Gillian Anderson was 'mesmerising'.

Oh, for heaven's sake, that wasn't "Radio Times". It was the nausiating, opinionated, smug, schoolgirl playground bully who always thinks her prattle is more important than the actual programme.

But - erm - on this occasion, I agree with the school bully.

[DracoM]

Well, interestingly, The Guardian comment blog on the production has just been closed with over 170 messages on it - the biggest on a TV show I have ever seen. I do hope someone at BBC TV Drama has read it.

[Mr Pee]

Oh, for heaven's sake, that wasn't "Radio Times". It was the nausiating, opinionated, smug, schoolgirl playground bully who always thinks her prattle is more important than the actual programme.

But - erm - on this occasion, I agree with the school bully.

Do you mean Alison Graham? I think she's rather good, and I agree with her most of the time.

Cue the usual remarks......

[Nick Armstrong]

Well, interestingly, The Guardian comment blog on the production has just been closed with over 170 messages on it - the biggest on a TV show I have ever seen. I do hope someone at BBC TV Drama has read it.

Just found that (it's always useful if you can post a link to speed the plough if you are referring to something online, I think. This one is: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-rad...rt-of-comments in case others want to peruse...)

I loved this comment from a contributor named "oliveblaksmith" at 11.13am on 28th December:

"Everyone has missed the most important bit and that is that this is the first time I have seen a blacksmiths forge depicted on tv or film that actually looked like a working blacksmiths forge. The iron was even the right colour for forging and Joe really did look like a blacksmith.

One more point though, for those of you you have said that pip is too good looking to be a blacksmith!!! well I have been a blacksmith for 25 years and I'm still good looking."

You can't argue with that!

It's a bit esoteric for a joke, so is perhaps deadly serious...

[Anna]

I watched the Sue Perkins Mrs Dickens. Not knowing much about Dickens, the man, his biography, I found his treatment of his wife rather disturbing as regards his callous treatment of her and his seeming preoccupation with her virgin sisters and almost, that he was Quilp lusting

However, austin's posted link references Bleak House, that BBC adaptation was, to me, perfect. I have Nicholas Nickleby here, I think I will start on that tomorrow.

[Barbirollians]

Exactly! Traddles' Boy. What a little gem! Love him for his insolence! You know, you cannot condense Dickens into 3 hours, this is the problem.

David Lean did quite a good job it with GE and Oliver Twist.

I have not watched this GE ( the 2000 version the BBC did was very good as I recall with Charlotte Rampling as Miss Havisham and Hugh Lloyd as Aged P ! ) but Ms Phelps butchered Oliver Twist a couple of years back - an atrocious adaptation so I do not expect great things from it . Why the BBC felt the need to do it again so soon baffled me.

The fatuous reason for letting Ms Phelps loose on Dickens is that he was the soap opera writer of his day and left cliffhangers in each episode of the story so this is the modern day equivalent . Utter nonsense and a complete failure to understand that for all the brilliance of the form in which Dickens wrote his works the reason thaat they have lasted is their substance as works of art and not the form they were written in.

[Nick Armstrong]

I watched the Sue Perkins Mrs Dickens. Not knowing much about Dickens, the man, his biography, I found his treatment of his wife rather disturbing as regards his callous treatment of her and his seeming preoccupation with her virgin sisters and almost, that he was Quilp lusting

However, austin's posted link references Bleak House, that BBC adaptation was, to me, perfect. I have Nicholas Nickleby here, I think I will start on that tomorrow.

Which Nick Nick, Anna? There's a film version http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0309912/ which suffers from a similar (worse, in fact) difficulty to the recent GE in that the central character is played by a young man with the facial attributes for modelling but less in the acting department - in that film, it seems that there's a vacuum at the heart of it... a shame, since the rest of the cast and the production are great (esp Jamie "Billy Elliot" Bell as Smike).

Didn't take to Ms Perkins on Dickens. On the other hand, I am finding that the 5 podcasts of R3's The Essay are rewarding: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/essay Current novelists (as opposed to a comedienne) talking about aspects of his work.

[Anna]

Which Nick Nick, Anna?

Err, it's a bluddy book wot Dickens wrote! Simples, printed, on paper. Penguin.

Didn't take to Ms Perkins on Dickens.

I thought you may have flung Audi alteram partem and A fortiori into the mix, M'Lud, knowing your wont for a bit of sixth form Latin

[Nick Armstrong]

I thought you may have flung Audi alteram partem and A fortiori into the mix, M'Lud, knowing your wont for a bit of sixth form Latin

Well in that instance, I thought res ipsa loquitur...

Err, it's a bluddy book wot Dickens wrote! Simples, printed, on paper. Penguin.

A book! Yeah, forgot about them innit.

Nice split quotes, ma'am, by the way