Television and novels

The relationship between television and novels is often complicated. A screenplay is so different from a novel that it’s no wonder that authors are sometimes frustrated by the way their work translates to the small screen. It’s said that Rodney Wingfield, creator of Jack Frost, never watched the highly successful tv series based on his character because he was so disgruntled by the pilot. Presumably the royalties must have sugared the pill, but I know several authors who were utterly dismayed by the changes made to their creations, which failed to result in high viewing figures.

There’s been a lot of debate recently about Marple and the cavalier treatment of the original Christie novels by the screenwriters. I can understand why changes may be made for a fresh generation of viewers, but sometimes they seem to be changes for the worse. I liked one or two of the early episodes of Marple, but thought the new version of The Sittaford Mystery, an enjoyable book, was so ludicrous that it verged on the embarrassing.

I was fascinated to learn that Christine Falls, John Banville’s first, and critically acclaimed, venture into crime fiction as Benjamin Black, started out with a tv screenplay. It was meant to be a co-production between Irish and Australian television, but it fell through. He decided to turn it into a novel, but moved the Australian scenes to the USA.

Something different happened when Cath Staincliffe wrote a novel called Cry Me a River. The novel did not sell, but she turned it into a screenplay, which became the highly successful Blue Murder, starring Caroline Quentin. Cath then re-wrote the novel under the Blue Murder title. And since then, she’s continued to write both books and screenplays featuring the character played by Quentin.