(no subject)

[nineveh_uk]

Watching Emma, I wonder if perhaps it isn't a good thing that the Wimsey books have not been televised for twenty years. It might be possible for less of Austen's dialogue to have been included, but it would have been hard work.

And why is no-one wearing a cap or hat?

Oh! Finally Mrs Weston has stopped being wet and has put on a cap.

Oh God! Jonny Lee Miller appears to be acting entirely by waving his forefingers.

And Robert Martin isn't supposed to be a clodhopper - Emma merely convinces herself that she is.

Urgh. And all the waving. Emma might be enthusiastic and eager for exciting, but she is supposed to have a good deal of dignity.

Aargh! And it could be a good cast, of only the script weren't so bloody awful.

The men are waving, too. Stop it! Stop it!

In short, Lost in Austen, which I was re-watching on DVD the other night, has ten times more subtlety, appreciation of period, and better dialogue than this supposedly "straight" adaptation.

I feel a letter to the BBC coming on.

Comments

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I think Davies will be *very* disappointed when he discovers South Riding is a place and not an activity...but I believe that the fact that they keep hiring him makes it unlikely that the BBC is amenable to letters from viewers, or indeed to reason at all.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

I blame Colin Firth.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I think Davies has done some excellent things, but that once he has done a "type" of project once, he does the same with all similar, and also that he is over-exposed.