Bleak Job, Well Done

Written by:Ben Granger.

I know its not the done thing round these here parts but I do like a bit of Dickens, (put off by school, my interest was awakened by Orwell�s outstanding essay on the author) and I�m afraid I�m going to come over all middle-brow and say the BBC have done a good job with the adaptation of Bleak House they�re serialising at the moment.

Philip Hensher in The Guardian makes the case against, complaining of parts ommited, and more importantly the fact that TV and movie versions of Dickens always miss the power of his narration.

To an extent I sympathise, but that�s a problem with all adaptations of everything as far as I can see. I think I�ve yet to see any programme/film as good as its book version, but that doesn�t mean it can�t have a good go. With Dickens you certainly do lose out a lot by not getting his vibrant description of scenes.

But on the other hand Dickens� is comparatively light on that great enemy of the director, the Interior Monologue, while the grotesquery and humour of his characters (caricature to detractors) can and do come alive in a good adaptation like this. Hensher also makes a bit of a fool of himself when he wonders

�Does it, for instance, include that incomparable passage, Krook’s list of the names of Miss Flite’s 25 pet birds: “Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon and Spinach?” It seems fairly unlikely; but, really, I just don’t want to know.�

Well Phillip you may not want to know, but the answer is it does, performed very well indeed by Mr Johnny Vegas. That�s the trouble with slagging something off you haven�t seen (I know, I�ve done it myself.)

The adaptation perhaps overdoes it in trying to cram more famous actors into a programme than has ever been done before. But they act well, and it certainly beats another series of Cutting It.

Posted on November 11th, 2005.

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• File under: Journalists who don�t understand literature, vol 94