Father Brown is a brand new BBC TV drama featuring G.K. Chesterton's legendary priest-detective. Oddly enough (at least, I thought it was odd to begin with) it is being shown in the afternoons, 10 episodes of 50 minutes shown on week-days for a fortnight, so most crime fans will be watching it via recordings or iPlayer, as I did with the first episode, The Hammer of God, based on one of the most celebrated stories in the canon.
This isn't the first time that TV has had a go at Father Brown. Kenneth More starred in 13 episodes in the 70s, but I was a student then and didn't watch them. Nor have I ever caught up with the DVDs, so if any reader of this blog has any views on whether that series is still watchable, I'd be glad to know.
What of the new series? Mark Williams plays Father Brown, and the regular cast includes Sorcha Cusack. The stories have been shifted into the 1950s, long after the originals were written, that is, and the setting is the Cotswolds, which is suitably photogenic. The Hammer of God is a long, long way from the graphic violence of Ripper Street, although it begins with a rather more explicit focus on the blacksmith's wife's adultery than you find in the original story, and the motive for the crime is not at all Chestertonian.
Purists may wince, but the question is, if you want to adapt these stories for the modern audience, how do you go about it? You have to look at what the writers were trying to do, and they have given an interesting insight into their approach. I felt that on the whole the writers did a good job. Okay, there was a bit of clunkiness in some of the scenes, and I'm surprised there wasn't more focus on paradox, which is at the heart of Chesterton's writing. But it was easy watching after a long working day, and it's just possible that Father Brown might become a guilty pleasure for a decent number of viewers -including me. In any case, it's really welcome that a writer of genuine distinction is being brought back into the limelight, even if he would be startled by some of what is being done with his work.
Showing posts with label Ripper Street. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ripper Street. Show all posts
Tuesday, 15 January 2013
Wednesday, 2 January 2013
Ripper Street - TV review
Ripper Street, the new BBC TV show which had its first episode on Sunday, is not conventional Sunday evening viewing fare in the Heartbeat or Downton Abbey tradition. It's a period piece, admittedly, set in theLondon of 1889, but written in a decidedly modern style, with a relentless focus on the dark underbelly of seemingly respectable Victorian life, "the worm in the bud."
As you would expect of a major new series, the cast is good, with Mathew Macfadyen in the lead role as Scotland Yard's Inspector Reid. His sidekick is played by Jerome Flynn, of Robson and Jerome fame, and Adam Rothenberg plays an American doctor and pathologist who seems to spend more time in a brothel than he does in the morgue.
A woman is found horribly murdered, and everyone assumes that Jack the Ripper is at work again. However,Reid has other ideas and his enquiiries lead him to a respectable house in the suburbs where the victim's husband narrowly escapes being hanged in an attempt at murder disguised as suicide. Clues that the husband reluctantly yields lead to the uncovering of a sinister and sadistic conspiracy.
Despite its gruesome and sadistic elements, and my feeling that writers who set crime stories in Victorian times too often feel the need to introduce a graphic sexual component, as if to compensate for the prudishness of Victorian crime fiction itself, I thought episode one represented a pretty good start for Ripper Street. One weakness was the limited characterisation of the bad guy - a mistake, I felt. Other than that, the story was soundly written, and the acting very good. But I hope that the Jack the Ripper references don't multiply in later episodes, since the original Whitechapel crimes, for all their undoubted massive significance, have to be the most over-referenced murders in the history of true crime.
As you would expect of a major new series, the cast is good, with Mathew Macfadyen in the lead role as Scotland Yard's Inspector Reid. His sidekick is played by Jerome Flynn, of Robson and Jerome fame, and Adam Rothenberg plays an American doctor and pathologist who seems to spend more time in a brothel than he does in the morgue.
A woman is found horribly murdered, and everyone assumes that Jack the Ripper is at work again. However,Reid has other ideas and his enquiiries lead him to a respectable house in the suburbs where the victim's husband narrowly escapes being hanged in an attempt at murder disguised as suicide. Clues that the husband reluctantly yields lead to the uncovering of a sinister and sadistic conspiracy.
Despite its gruesome and sadistic elements, and my feeling that writers who set crime stories in Victorian times too often feel the need to introduce a graphic sexual component, as if to compensate for the prudishness of Victorian crime fiction itself, I thought episode one represented a pretty good start for Ripper Street. One weakness was the limited characterisation of the bad guy - a mistake, I felt. Other than that, the story was soundly written, and the acting very good. But I hope that the Jack the Ripper references don't multiply in later episodes, since the original Whitechapel crimes, for all their undoubted massive significance, have to be the most over-referenced murders in the history of true crime.
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