Great Expectations, TV Adaptation (and other matters.)

 Tuesday. 10.50 a.m. I haven't been to Camphill today. As I mentioned in another post on here, the usual theatre workshop is not on, but the group have gone to Stony Stratford. I was going, but the idea of having to walk about all day and possibly nowhere to sit down, I thought I would avoid it and had emailed to say so. With my underlying health issues, perhaps it was a wise choice. It looks as if there will be rain later, so goodness knows how they will manage.

I am doing some baking this morning. I have a recipe for caramel brownies, which came from Sainsbury's. I had it filed for quite a while and had been meaning to give it a go. My kitchen at Dexter House is minuscule, so it's quite a juggling act to make space. The thing is finished and is now baking. It should take around 35 minutes and I am looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

3.15 p.m. The brownies are out of the oven. They are far better than I had expected. Soft and soggy in the centre and slightly crisp on top. There is a layer of caramel inside, sort of marbled on the top. This is from Carnation and came in a tin. I will have to make more.

9.20 p.m. The wind continues to blow, and I can hear it rampaging around outside.

Wednesday. 6.55 a.m. Alfie and I have been out, as usual. He was fast asleep at the point I wanted to go out, and we found it quite pleasant on the weather front.  The wind has dropped, and as I write this, it's sunny. We did a circuit of Oldbrook Green. Some of the daffodils are finished. I don't think some of the flowers are actually daffodils. I think they may be narcissi, but I can't be sure. I will have to do a Google search.

Thursday. 6.30 a.m. A bright but chilly morning. Streaks of red across the sky as I took out Alfie onto the grass along Strudwick Drive at around 6 o'clock.

I'm currently watching the new BBC adaptation of 'Great Expectations.' I know the novel well and have read it several times. I have read a handful of other Dickens novels. I'm not sure what to make of this version. It's been scripted by Stephen Knight, scriptwriter of 'Peaky Blinders.' He has taken quite a few liberties with what is essentially one of the mainstays of British literature. It is quite violent in places, and the strong language means that it is not what I would call 'family-friendly.' In the past, the BBC 'classic serials' were shown on television at Sunday teatime. We get more backstory about Magwitch, who is the convict who meets Pip on the Kent marches at the beginning of the novel and around which most of the plot revolves. He is the (spoiler alert.) secret benefactor who allows Pip to become a 'gentleman.' Olivia Colman is cast as the jilted spinster, Miss Haversham. We discover her at one point smoking opium, which is presumably how her family made their money. 

There is 'colour-blind' casting. For example, Miss Haversham's protégée (for want of a better term to describe her.) Estella, is played by an actress 'of colour' and so is Mr Jaggers. The only problem I have with Mr Jaggers being 'of colour' is that, historically, he wouldn't be in that position, that of a lawyer, at the time 'Great Expectations is set. It begins around 1812, but the main action is set in 1839. The novel is narrated by Pip, looking back to his time as a child, living in the Kent marshes. We don't seem to get that element in this production. Pip, in this version, seems very miserable, but the 'happy-go-lucky' child he is written as in the original novel. He is several years older than in the original, around 13-14 here, but around 8-9 in the novel. He also has more of a relationship with Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, who is married to his sister, who is always referred to as 'Mrs Joe.' I'm not sure whether we ever hear her Christian name mentioned. 

If I have a fault with this adaptation, it is that the pace is really slow. There really is no need for it to drag so. As a viewer, I want things to move along faster. It just seems they have to drag it along at this sort of pace merely to show more mud, dirt, and degradation, just to try and explain the conditions of life in Victorian England. It just slows the whole production down and doesn't serve any other purpose. I think this would put off a lot of viewers. As for the swearing, that really is unnecessary. I realize that people would have used such language at that time, but it really adds nothing to the whole.

Then, why has the BBC decided that we need yet another version of 'Great Expectations'? There was a production done in 2011 and, of course, there is the film adaptation which has John Mills as Pip. Why not find a lesser Dickens novel to adapt, such as 'Hard Times', which surely deserves a new adaptation. If not Dickens, then why not other novels, written by, for example, H.G. Wells, ('Kipps', 'History of Mr Polly' etc etc.) 

As for this current version of 'Great Expectations', I will have to watch the remaining episodes and comment once it is complete. It is certainly not the usual somewhat sentimental rendering of the novel we usually come to expect from a Dickens novel. This shows mid-19th Century England in all its grotesqueness, the underclass, the grime and unpleasantness. In that respect, it's more realistic, because, as I've said, usually that period which Dickens writes, is glossed over. Which it shouldn't be and is what he intended to portray. 

1300th Blog Post- More Television Viewing

So, I've reached another landmark in my blogging. This is the 1300th blog post! I admit that not every post is a brilliant literary masterpiece, but at least I've kept it going. So, read on and be  either intrigued or bored silly!

I've signed up to Netflix. After I was lent the first series of 'The Crown' on DVD I couldn't wait to get into season 2, so it was a simple matter of signing up to this streaming service, and there's so much to see on there that it's worth the £7.99 a month. What I like, compared with Sky, is that there's no commercials! Sky and ITV are funded by the sale of advertising, but an hour's drama (or any other type of show, come to that.) has at least 15 minutes of advertising. That's about every 15-20 minutes. It annoys me that you have to endure a bout of yawn-inducing commercials about stair lifts, car insurance advertising and sofa adverts when there is only barely 10 minutes of a show left before it finishes. Not so on Netflix. I've got only two more episodes of season 2 to go and I can't wait to get to the next season. I'm intrigued to see how Olivia Colman portrays H.M. Queen. Clare Foy has been quite brilliant, particularly getting the accent right as well as the tiny expressions, the fold of the arms, those little looks with the eyes. It's not always what a character says that counts, but often the little non-verbal things that make a bit of acting work so well. So it is with her performance. I didn't think I'd enjoy it so much as I have. How on earth did they manage to film so much at Buckingham Palace? The exteriors of course. I don't think for one moment any of it could possibly be filmed inside, but how could you duplicate the iconic front elevation, the gates and the Victoria Monument? I imagine there must be a certain amount of trickery with C.G.I., but then the rest must have been in those famous locations. Alright, I admit that the show is really a glorified soap, but it's soap done with real conviction and truth. I'm wondering what permission they had to have in order to portray not just Her Majesty, but other still-living characters. It's so much better than a lot of what more traditional television has to offer, such as Downton Abbey. Such boring characters, I mean the aristos. Robert, Earl of Grantham, as portrayed by Hugh Bonneville, is such a stuffed shirt that there's nothing to like about him. It's the 'downstairs' staff where all the action is. They're far more interesting and believable. I can see why the Americans love it and it was apparently more popular there an over here in Britain. Perhaps because they seem to enjoy anything that smacks of class divisions, deference and so on.

I love anything to do with history. We're spoilt for choice. at the moment. Lucy Worsley, doing a series on American history, called, 'American History's Biggest Fibs,' and revealing that some incidents aren't all they seem and that history is written by the winning side or for propaganda reasons. I really love her to bits. She makes history fun and not boring, which is what probably put me off when I was at collage in the 1960's and attempting to do A Level History. She really throws herself into everything she does and loves dressing up! Why couldn't I have a teacher of history like Lucy? I've signed up to something called 'History Hit,' which is run by Dan Snow. It's a sort of Netflix of history, streaming documentaries and podcasts with a history connection. I have it for £1 a month for three months and then it's about £5 a month, but well worth it. Nothing on there that talks down to you, treats you as if you've got half a brain, thank goodness. If you go on BBC iPlayer there's lots of archive stuff. A lot of back-catalogue material, not just documentaries, but drama. One such I'm rewatching is the BBC adaptation of 'Bleak House,' which was done more like a soap-opera, in 30-minute episodes and definitely not done in the usual 'classic serial' style. Rapid cutting, no lingering shots, just gets to the guts of the plot and the characters and no hanging around. Adapted by Andrew Davies who seems to have made a career out of adapting costume drama. 

Wild and Windy Weather

The past few days it's been very wild and windy. Some rain, but not as much as we had around a year ago which caused so much flooding in other parts of the country. I think we seemed to escape lightly compared with, for example, Somerset. I was somewhat concerned that the wind would rip down the rest of the fence. There is a further section which is showing signs of giving up. Still no indication that our beloved landlord intends to actually do something about repairing said fence. It's well over six months ago since we had him here with his mother and the workman who was supposed to do the work on the fence. It would have been nice to be given some idea what is going on. But, it seems, nothing is being done. We will have to do some sort of temporary 'fix' before the whole fence disintegrates.

I've been out in the car this morning. When I came back home I noticed that there are several properties on the estate which have their fences blown over by the wind. I also see that the section of fence in our garden next to the section which has totally blown over is beginning to fall over. Considering the precarious state of the remaining fence, which has slats in it which are very rotten, to the point where merely touching them will make the crumble to a pile of sawdust, it won't be 'fit for purpose' for very much longer. Probably a very violent storm will finish it completely.

We've been watching the television series 'Broadchurch.' This seems to have become  something of a hit, winning three BAFTA awards, for Best Drama, Olivia Colman for Best Actress and David Bradley for Best Supporting Actor at the 2013 Awards. We didn't watch it when it was originally broadcast but have now seen it on catch-up.  I wanted to see what all the fuss was about and was totally taken by it, swept along by the story, and the cliff-hanging at the end of each episode certainly gave it a definite 'can't wait to see the next episode' element to it. Well, at least it you watch it like that you don't have to endure endless adverts every ten minutes or so. We have seen the original eight episodes and have now seen the first of the new series. Not what we were expecting at all. One of the best bits of drama of recent years and the new series has taken things in a direction we were not expecting at all. Yes, I can't wait to see the next episode to see how things develop. David Tennant has certainly made his mark with this, and put his stint in Doctor Who well and truly behind him.