TV Scoop asks: Do we need more literary adaptations?

There was a little lull in the fashionableness (what a hideous word) of literary adaptations after Pride and Prejudice (yes, the wet shirt one), presumably because it was so well done that it was worried that anything made too quickly afterwards would be unfavourably compared with it, but now they are seriously in vogue again, thanks, for the most part, to the huge success of the soap-style working of Bleak House on BBC One. ITV recently put together a Jane Austen season (with Northanger Abbey the pick of the bunch), and the BBC will be bringing Dickens’s Oliver Twist to our screens over winter.

And here’s the problem - perhaps we just all have Austen and Dickens fatigue. Do we really need yet another version of Oliver Twist? There was a TV adaptation with Robert Lindsay as Fagin in 1999, and there’s also the black and white film, the musical and the Roman Polanski version. Even a lesser known Dickens novel, such as Hard Times or the barely-adapted (but brilliant) Dombey and Son, would be preferable. Perhaps commissioners simply need to be a bit braver, and trust that we might be interested to watch an adaptation of a novel we don’t already know inside out.

Because there is, of course, still a wealth of stunning plots, characters and themes, from the time of the Odyssey and the Iliad to the latest best-sellers, just waiting to be brought to life on the small-screen for the first time. Of course there should be room in the schedules for new works (probably more than there is currently) and I’ve no doubt that Oliver Twist will indeed be very good, but perhaps a little more thought about the books chosen to be made into costume dramas would help to keep the genre - which has served TV so well over the years - fresh and enjoyable.

Our opinion, from a Janeite point of view: we love to see new adaptations of Jane Austen’s work. But if you’re going to do it halfway, don’t bother. Spend the money. Use proper locations. Get proper costumes; yes, that means bonnets when the ladies are out of doors; it’s a cliché because they all wore them. Pay attention to historical detail in art direction and general tone. Don’t underestimate your audience and dumb down the work or “modernize” it on their behalf. Take enough time to develop the story; use multiple episodes if necessary. Hire some new blood as scriptwriters–people who are deeply familiar with and love the original work, who are willing to do the background research to bring it to life. Don’t try to squeeze the maximum amount of money and attention out of it while delivering a substandard product. Do it right, or don’t bother. We’ll be re-reading the novels in the meantime, thanks.