Splinters

Two literary adaptations on BBC4 (both part of their "Edwardian Season") the recent Who Killed Mrs De Ropp? and the still ongoing Diary Of A Nobody have got me thinking once again about my ambivalence towards the form. I looked forward to and received enjoyment from both, and yet was disappointed by both too.

I love Saki, especially the Clovis chronicles. I've always seen him as a sourer, snarkier, nastier twin of Wilde, with the same perverse slicing and dicing of the sensibility of his age that Oscar managed. Diary of A Nobody is a real minor masterpiece too in my view. That both were to appear on the screen was a thing to cheer. And there was and is something to savour in both. The Saki film performs well in bringing out the quiet desperation, fanatical, cultish sinister and secret, in the young sick child's veneration of ferret Sredni Vashtar. And Hugh Bonneville's portrayal of Charles Pooter cannot fairly be faulted in its performance. Very well pitched, he doesn't mug to camera for comedic effect, and conveys the subtle dignity as well as the absurdity of the character well.

AND YET. After watching both programmes I was left with a deflated feeling. The enjoyment was so much less in watching them I was left almost distrusting of my genuine joy on reading the original stories. Was this false memory syndrome? No. Some vital, elusive, ingredient has left the mix, as so often happens when the story hits the big or small screen. Chemistry short circuits. It's easier to see how novelists in for the big swathe of the dramatic narrative swoop can be short changed, but it's harder to see how the likes of Saki and Grossmith, who rely largely on dialogue can not quite ignite on screen. And yet they don't. Some alchemy conjured by the combination of the author's voice and your own listening of it is lost. Authors will perhaps always reach parts "screenwriters" can't. Still, not bad, and keep trying.