My friends, I've failed you badly. I promised you book reviews, and then I left you dangling. For that I sincerely apologize. I have so many books that are due (overdue, really) for reviews, I couldn't seem to get all the reviews written! I haven't given up on that project, but today I have something else to share: news of the upcoming series of BBC Dickens adaptations.
Steven Knight, who will co-produce these with Tom Hardy, has told Collider that their Christmas Carol script is "largely done," that Hardy will star (whether as Scrooge or another character is not known), and that they're aiming for Christmas 2019. He also had some general thoughts on the other adaptations they plan to do. Like most adapters these days, he speaks of wanting to make them "modern" and gritty and so forth; as with most adapters, we'll have to wait and see exactly how these particular projects end up interpreting those terms.
We've been having a good discussion of the news in the Dickensblog Facebook group (thanks to Art for getting that started). Which reminds me, if you're a fan of this blog and you're on Facebook, please come join us there!
It's interesting that they're going to do A Christmas Carol as a miniseries since it's a pretty short and simple story. But it's true that it has some great scenes which often get cut in movie versions so it'll be nice if we get those. I'm a little worried though that since A Christmas Carol is so famous, they'll want to change the plot and characters too much for my tastes.
I'm kind of disappointed that it sounds like they're interested in doing Dickens books which have been adapted frequently. But if the truth be told, I'd probably pick the same ones as they did if I were selecting which of Dickens' books I thought were the best. Great Expectations is actually my favorite (along with Nicholas Nickleby) and Oliver Twist and David Copperfield are pretty high ranking in my personal estimation too.
I might be more than willing to forgive them not looking for fresher material if they don't make the Artful Dodger a good guy and do have Pip forgive Miss Havisham. Some of the only adaptations to stay true to the books in those respect have been the Wishbone episodes.
Posted by: Cody | January 23, 2019 at 01:46 PM