You may not have noticed, but BBC One is running a series of adaptations of classic works of literature on Sunday nights at 9pm, which is just the moment when most of us want to watch a good programme. So far we have had Lady Chatterley’s Lover, An Inspector Calls, The Go-Between, and next week there’s to be Cider With Rosie. Literary adaptations used to be a BBC staple, and though often spoken of slightingly as “costume drama”, they used to underpin the BBC’s reputation as a maker of great programmes. But what exactly is the rationale behind the present choices?
As this article from the BBC itself explains, it has a lot to do with social matters. This is fair enough: all four of the dramas have some connection with the First World War, which, as we all know, was a huge catalyst of social change. When Sir Clifford Chatterley comes back from the War “in bits”, it is a reasonable assumption to see this not just as a personal defeat for the man, but as pointing to the loss of power of a whole class. Connie’s affair with Mellors is shocking, not because of the frank treatment of sexual matters in the book – which incidentally makes very poor reading – but because she is breaking a class barrier.
The BBC adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover brought in quite a lot of material about class conflict, but really it had little choice in the matter, if one were to find anything of value in a novel whose heyday is now long past. When I was a schoolboy people spoke of Lawrence in breathless tones, but that was a long time ago. Which leads to the inevitable question: given that this novel really is no longer novel, why did they bother filming it?
The same question arises with The Go-Between, which has already been filmed, and filmed very well, back in 1971. This adaptation, while good, added little to our appreciation of the novel as far as I could see. Again, the novel, while famous, is not entirely satisfactory, in that it lends itself to formulaic interpretation. The cricket match scene in particular reminds us about the simmering tension between class war and class harmony, and the First World War, which is to sweep away so many of the characters, looms over the whole book.
There is not much real ambiguity or depth in any of this. Ted’s suicide – surely so unnecessary: couldn’t he simply have packed up and left? – acts as a rude interruption to the pastoral romance, much as the War did. Again, all this is very familiar. Why did the BBC decide to adapt this novel when there are so many other novels, many unjustly neglected, that could have made for something more original and arresting?
The British are, it is often observed, obsessed with matters of social class, and the two novels adapted by the BBC do nothing to dispel this idea. Moreover, our class obsession seem to be wrapped up with our sexual obsessions, and both the novels deal with upper class young women attracted to handsome working class men, while engaged or married to war-wounded men with titles. The Go-Between is far better than Lady Chatterley’s Lover, even if comparisons are odious, but isn’t it time we laid Mellors and Ted Burgess (and EM Forster’s gay version in Maurice, while we are at it) to rest?
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