The BBC Dance
Jun. 13th, 2003 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chickenfeetI have now listened to the first four episodes of the BBC production of A Dance to the Music of Time and have given it a fair amount of thought. It is always interesting to see/listen to a dramatization of a book one knows well. In this case it is the more so as there is another comparator in the C4 TV production. Actually as I listened to the BBC version I had to keep focussing on the books rather than my memories of the TV version.
So what's the verdict so far? Overall I think its less obviously appealing than the TV version but truer in spirit to the books. For example, the genuine 20's upper class accents grate but are more accurate than the updated speech patterns of the TV version. It really reinforces the socially limited world in which NJ moves. Similarly NJ comes over as less sympathetic than in the TV version but, again, checking back on the text shows how much of the cattier side of NJ is edited out in the TV version. Widmerpool is done very well; somewhat sinister, single minded, ruthless and not at all a buffoon. This is a Widmerpool to avoid if possible!
And my God the women. It really brings home to me why I have never been able to tolerate upper class English women. At least the boys get (or at least used to get) some sense knocked into them at school or in the army. The women are just too, too awful darling.
So what's the verdict so far? Overall I think its less obviously appealing than the TV version but truer in spirit to the books. For example, the genuine 20's upper class accents grate but are more accurate than the updated speech patterns of the TV version. It really reinforces the socially limited world in which NJ moves. Similarly NJ comes over as less sympathetic than in the TV version but, again, checking back on the text shows how much of the cattier side of NJ is edited out in the TV version. Widmerpool is done very well; somewhat sinister, single minded, ruthless and not at all a buffoon. This is a Widmerpool to avoid if possible!
And my God the women. It really brings home to me why I have never been able to tolerate upper class English women. At least the boys get (or at least used to get) some sense knocked into them at school or in the army. The women are just too, too awful darling.
