Aghast at Adaptations
O dear, I am not sure I want to watch the new (3-episode - how can you do it in 3 episodes of an hour each, in 1974 it was 13 hour long episodes) TV adaptation of South Riding.
I will concede that I am profoundly prejudiced against Andrew Davies's 'new' version for reasons enumerated here in Mark Bostridge's excellent and respectful article about Holtby and the novel (but The Crowded Street, and, I think, most of Holtby's other novels, had previously appeared from Virago, and, indeed, I have 1970s mass-market pbs of several, so he actually underestimates the continuing popularity and circulation of her other works):
In the publicity for its new three-part adaptation of South Riding, the BBC announced that it was rescuing "a little-known novel" from oblivion, a sentiment echoed by the master of period adaptations, Andrew Davies, who claimed to have rediscovered "a forgotten masterpiece". No notice is taken of the fact that in the 75 years since its first publication, South Riding has never been out of print. In addition to the 1938 film, which was rereleased both during and just after the second world war, the book was dramatised on several occasions for radio - one version as recently as 2005 - and in 1974 was adapted by the novelist Stan Barstow for an acclaimed TV series.
Quite.
Plus, spotted in the theatre roundup section in the Guide in today's Guardian, a play, Age Of Arousal, which purports to be based on George Gissing's The Odd Women. WTF I say WTF:
Set in 1885 as the suffragette movement* gathered pace and passion, it tells of Mary Barfoot and her lover, Rhoda**, who set up an in-demand school where young women can learn typing, helping to make them independent from fathers and husbands, the latter much in short supply at the time. Escaping conditioning and Victorian values while kick-starting a sexual revolution*** proves more difficult than expected, and the path to good intentions is littered with petticoats.****
*Mi crashing anachronism, let me show u it.
**WHUT.
***Point thahr, u have misst it.
****Small earthquake at St Jean de Luz, in the vicinity of Gissing's grave.
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