North and South (Novel and BBC Adaptation)

[Shep'sSocks]

Yeah, he has teeth! And they're less scary than CF's.

[Easter Lily]

All this comparing of RA with CF is giving me ideas...
Now, I feel obliged to revisit P&P on DVD... don't know anyone who has it though... and I'm sure none of the vid stores have them... I'm not that excited about it to buy the set. Must check with the local library.

[Shep'sSocks]

The chain vid stores would probably have it.

[Easter Lily]

Someone on C19 kindly posted this article to me:

TRIUMPH OF THE MILL
The archetypal Victorian hero returns in an adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s romantic classic. Alan Mascarenhas reports.

The Sydney Morning Herald
“The Guide” May 2-8, 2005

Period dramas are meant to be ratings poison, but there are spectacular exceptions. The ABC scored an unlikely hit in 1996 with Pride and Prejudice. The smouldering romance between Lizzie Bennet and Mr Darcy seduced 2 million viewers each Sunday, knocking even Nine’s 60 Minutes off its perch.

Now, Aunty hopes to surprise us again with North & South, a BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s 1855 romantic classic set in the industrial revolution. It’s a tough ask Gaskell is no Jane Austen. But Sandy Welch, who adapted the screenplay for North & South, insists Gaskell’s recognition is long overdue. “Alongside [Austen], Dickens and the Brontes there are what people call the ‘lesser writers’,” she says. “They’re good writers; in any other era they would be on top, but it just so happens that the 19th- century novelists are a very dense field. [They’d make] a good football team.”

Screening over four weeks, North & South is a tumultuous love story in the tradition of Pride and Prejudice. The heroine is Margaret Hale (played by Daniella Denby-Ashe), whose family moves from the affluent south of England to the industrial northern town of Milton. Margaret instinctively recoils from her new surroundings and unleashes her venom on John Thornton (Richard Armitage), a local cotton mill owner whom she regards as rude. Her derision only intensifies as she befriends the mill workers whom she believes Thornton is exploiting. But slowly, almost despite herself, her animosity thaws.

The parallels with Lizzie and Mr Darcy are undeniable: Margaret’s interactions with Thornton produce a welter of guilt, denial, unacknowledged feelings and misinterpreted gestures.

But Welch, who won a BAFFA in 1999 for her adaptation of Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend, explodes tensions even further. Her screenplay pulls off many well-judged departures from the novel: Thornton is made more diffident towards Margaret and a seductress is invented as a rival for his affections. Another audacious rewrite is when Margaret sees Thornton hit one of his mill workers. “Now that doesn’t happen in the book and a lot of people over here thought Sandy had gone too far,” Denby-Ashe says. “But it has to be a very powerful meeting when Margaret runs into [Thornton] in order to hate him so much.”

A love story’s credibility hinges on its casting and Denby-Ashe and Armitage make appealing antagonists. The 26- year-old Denby-Ashe, better known as troubled shoplifter Sarah Hills on the soap Eastenders, nabbed the part of Margaret after auditioning for a lesser role. She describes her character as haughty, stubborn and strong-willed: the most complex she’s ever tackled.
“This is my first period piece on TV and it was a huge step up,” she says. “Oh, God, you couldn’t really get more different to Eastenders. The costumes, for instance, and the make-up. It took two hours to get me into my corset dress, hat and coat.”

But it was the swarthy, side-burned Armitage who made the biggest impact when the series aired in Britain in November. He’s seemingly achieved the impossible: displacing Colin Firth as the archetypal Victorian hero. Denby-Ashe giggles that love-struck viewers went “mad on the internet”. Welch admits she’s “never [seen] such a response ... handwritten letters from women aged 17 to 80”.

Of course, the reasons for North & South’s resonance go deeper than a charismatic co-star. In England, class divisions based on geography persist to this day. Denby-Ashe says people from southern England rarely come into contact with their compatriots from the north, and old stereotypes of the region as grimy and grey die hard. The series’ depiction of dashing factory workers and industrialists would also have awakened viewers’ memories of feuds under Margaret Thatcher, most notably the 1984 miners’ strike.

Then there’s the more apolitical school of thought: what viewer can resist a good, slow-burning love story? The more obstacles to the relationship, the better, laughs Denby-Ashe.

“There are many things that stop [this pair] from being together. It’s quite frustrating watching it back. You’re thinking, “Oh, go on, just grab her and snog her, why don’t you. But I suppose that wouldn’t be very Victorian.”

North and South begins on Sunday on the ABC at 8.3Opm.

I love the part about RA doing the seemingly impossible and displacing CF as the archetypal period hero...

[Immy]

I'm a very happy bunny today, got my essay in one hour before the deadline and on the way home swung by JB and picked up N&S
I feel a BBC drama marathon comming on, N&S, P&P and if I can find the video, Tom Jones for a bit of fun. I love Henry Fielding

[Easter Lily]

I'm having a N&S Girls Night on Thurs...
After telling my colleagues about the chopping the ABC did, I've now got a waiting list on my DVD...
One of my colleagues was a tad scandalized by the scene at the railway station... which surprised me... she's usually such a liberal minded person but she's a stickler for historical accuracy too.
Did you enjoy the article that I posted from the Sydney Morning Herald?

[Immy]

RA is definatly my 'period hero'

I like the age group of the viwers 17 to 80. I can just imagine the little old ladies swooning

[Easter Lily]

RA is definatly my 'period hero'

Mine too... go Richard!

I like the age group of the viwers 17 to 80. I can just imagine the little old ladies swooning

Can't you just

Yeah... a slow burning love story... Does it every time...

[Immy]

all I know is when I'm an old lady I want spend a lot of my time admiring handsome young men

[Easter Lily]

You think? Wouldn't you want to admire something with a few extra miles on it?
At least with Richard... we'll grow old together

[Shep'sSocks]

In N&S, who is the seductress who is a rival for his affections? Eh? Po-faced Anne Latimer? Who, like, doesn't say a word? Eh?

[Easter Lily]

I suspect that that's the idea...
Journalists... so like them to exaggerate

[Shep'sSocks]

I suspect the journo was going on what was in promo notes and did actually watch it before writing the review.

[Easter Lily]

A rival perhaps... a seductress though? Just because she puts her arm around his... and tries oh so hard to ingratiate herself... she becomes a Victorian version of a hussy?

[Shep'sSocks]

Snert, yeah right. It's all because she sat next to him at dinner.