So near and yet so far - Kyra Smith shares her responses to the BBC adaptation of North and South.
I should have known not to put my trust in an adaptation of Mrs Gaskel's North and South that described itself as "Pride and Prejudice with a social conscience." And yes I understand where the comparison comes from (the whole boy meets girl, boy fancies girl, girl tells him to bog off, girl changes mind arc is very familiar) and I also understand that its important to make the adaptation appealing to Sunday night TV viewers as nineteenth century fiction geeks but it's like calling Pan's Labyrinth "Neverwhere with fascists." The world that created Jane Austen was infinitely different to the world that created Mrs Gaskell.
Before I continue, I probably ought to confess that it's been many years since I read North and South and even then it was hurriedly and without affection in order to blag my way through a tutorial. I tend to like my nineteenth century fiction overwrought and gothic or repressed and full of ballrooms, with the poor conspicuous by their absence and mud never mentioned except without reference to petticoats. And to give it due credit the adaptation was sufficiently inspiring to encourage me to give Mrs Gaskell another look. One appalling lapse in judgement aside (not counting the box text of the DVD), it was an excellent series, well cast, well acted and well filmed with a convincing sense of historical authenticity and a surprisingly lovely, if slightly violin-heavy, soundtrack which, if not quite as charming as the Pride and Prejudice doo-doo-doodle-dooh, was actually much better.
The story revolves around Margaret Hale, a nonconformist clergyman's daughter who moves with her family from an idyllic parsonage in the South to Milton, a mill town in the grim North supposedly based on Manchester where Mrs Gaskell lived with her nonconformist minister husband. The change of environment comes as quite a shock to the gently raised Margaret and she soon comes to sympathise with plight of the mill workers. She also becomes acquainted with John Thornton, a local mill owner and a friend of her father. Sparks fly and so forth, and some of the pressing social issues of the time are explored through the unbiased eyes of Margaret. One of the things I remember liking in the novel, and which is very well explored in the series, is the relatively balanced portrayal of both the workers and the masters, represented in the characters of Higgins and Thornton. The adaptation manages to encompass some of the political complexities and to portray the workers, unionists and masters with sympathy and subtlety.
There are some very impressive performances, notably Brendan Coyle's proud and passionate Higgins, Tim Pigott-Smith as the naive and sweet-natured Mr Hale and Sinead Cusack, all strength and severity, as Mr Thornton's mother. Daniela Denby-Ashe is slightly disappointing as Margaret Hale. Thankfully, she is neither insipid nor patronising and communicates a quiet strength of will that I found myself respecting. Occasionally she can seem a little stilted but perhaps that is only in contrast to the male lead about whom I feel compelled to gush at length. Richard Armitage's portrayal of the mill owner, John Thornton, is quite simply flawless. Strong, passionate, principled and enticingly vulnerable I'm sure much on this subject has been said on the internet, so I shall just add my swooning to the multitude and move on. Oh help, I've turned into a middle aged woman.
In spite of my fears, it was all going splendidly until about ten minutes from the end. In fact there are some lovely scenes; the mill, with the constant thrashing of the machinery and the air full of flying cotton, is particularly striking. I'm also glad to see that I have mellowed in my approach to costume drama adaptations, in that I am no longer liable to take refuge in outrage when faced with lake jumping and other liberties. Now that I'm older I understand that historical accuracy is less important than Colin Firth in a wet shirt, and I also understand that "getting is right" is an illusion because adapting something, no matter how well loved or universally appealing, from one medium to another must still be an act creative re-interpretation. See, I did learn something from Harry Potter. Therefore, I can acknowledge without any sense of shame whatsoever that some of the best moments of North and South are, in fact, not in the book at all, for example when Margaret writes (or rather narrates) to her cousin "I believe I have seen Hell, and it is white. It is snow white." And as for the scene in which Mr Thornton stands at his window, glowering and yearning and smouldering, as he watches Margaret's carriage leave ah, be still my beating heart.
But there must be a limit. Wet shirts I can take. Passionate growling I can take. But completely abandoning all sense of time, place and authenticity for cheap and unnecessary - romantic clinches I can't. North and South, I was surprised to discover on a swift glance over, is a very romantic book, much more so than the restrained smiles and blushes of Austen. There's heaving and trembling of the type I'd be embarrassed to encounter in a Mills and Boon. Therefore I cannot for the life of me understand why someone would think this insufficient and, in some spurious attempt to perhaps introduce more of action and activity, uproot the final declaration scene from a perfectly respectable drawing room to a train station. Yes. A public train station.
In the book, hero and heroine have a passionate reconciliation in a drawing room, there is trembling, there is heaving, there is simmering, there is physical contact. It's very sweet.
The series, however, although the dialogue remains faithful in spirit if not in letter, goes all Brief Encounter. The two lovers meet entirely by chance at a train station like something in a modern day romantic comedy, proceed to snog vigorously in full public view and then she joins him on a Northbound train leaving the man she keeps refusing to marry staring wistfully after them from his Southbound train carriage. I don't mind the snogging, it's not in the book but I'm a 21st century girl and I like my romantic pay-off, but no Victorian gentlewoman would ever ever ever indulge in heavy petting at a train station. It would have been as shocking if they had stripped off and gone at it like monkeys. And no matter how strong willed or brave and no matter how inevitable their marriage, no respectable woman would throw herself upon a gentleman's protection at a train station. And, quite frankly, considerations of appropriate behaviour aside, I think it was downright mean-spirited of them to throw themselves at each other right in front of Henry Lennox and his puppy dog eyes and breaking heart.
I think perhaps if the series had been less good up at that point I would have been less disappointed. But it was a miserably misguided end to an otherwise thoroughly excellent adaptation.
Before I continue, I probably ought to confess that it's been many years since I read North and South and even then it was hurriedly and without affection in order to blag my way through a tutorial. I tend to like my nineteenth century fiction overwrought and gothic or repressed and full of ballrooms, with the poor conspicuous by their absence and mud never mentioned except without reference to petticoats. And to give it due credit the adaptation was sufficiently inspiring to encourage me to give Mrs Gaskell another look. One appalling lapse in judgement aside (not counting the box text of the DVD), it was an excellent series, well cast, well acted and well filmed with a convincing sense of historical authenticity and a surprisingly lovely, if slightly violin-heavy, soundtrack which, if not quite as charming as the Pride and Prejudice doo-doo-doodle-dooh, was actually much better.
The story revolves around Margaret Hale, a nonconformist clergyman's daughter who moves with her family from an idyllic parsonage in the South to Milton, a mill town in the grim North supposedly based on Manchester where Mrs Gaskell lived with her nonconformist minister husband. The change of environment comes as quite a shock to the gently raised Margaret and she soon comes to sympathise with plight of the mill workers. She also becomes acquainted with John Thornton, a local mill owner and a friend of her father. Sparks fly and so forth, and some of the pressing social issues of the time are explored through the unbiased eyes of Margaret. One of the things I remember liking in the novel, and which is very well explored in the series, is the relatively balanced portrayal of both the workers and the masters, represented in the characters of Higgins and Thornton. The adaptation manages to encompass some of the political complexities and to portray the workers, unionists and masters with sympathy and subtlety.
There are some very impressive performances, notably Brendan Coyle's proud and passionate Higgins, Tim Pigott-Smith as the naive and sweet-natured Mr Hale and Sinead Cusack, all strength and severity, as Mr Thornton's mother. Daniela Denby-Ashe is slightly disappointing as Margaret Hale. Thankfully, she is neither insipid nor patronising and communicates a quiet strength of will that I found myself respecting. Occasionally she can seem a little stilted but perhaps that is only in contrast to the male lead about whom I feel compelled to gush at length. Richard Armitage's portrayal of the mill owner, John Thornton, is quite simply flawless. Strong, passionate, principled and enticingly vulnerable I'm sure much on this subject has been said on the internet, so I shall just add my swooning to the multitude and move on. Oh help, I've turned into a middle aged woman.
In spite of my fears, it was all going splendidly until about ten minutes from the end. In fact there are some lovely scenes; the mill, with the constant thrashing of the machinery and the air full of flying cotton, is particularly striking. I'm also glad to see that I have mellowed in my approach to costume drama adaptations, in that I am no longer liable to take refuge in outrage when faced with lake jumping and other liberties. Now that I'm older I understand that historical accuracy is less important than Colin Firth in a wet shirt, and I also understand that "getting is right" is an illusion because adapting something, no matter how well loved or universally appealing, from one medium to another must still be an act creative re-interpretation. See, I did learn something from Harry Potter. Therefore, I can acknowledge without any sense of shame whatsoever that some of the best moments of North and South are, in fact, not in the book at all, for example when Margaret writes (or rather narrates) to her cousin "I believe I have seen Hell, and it is white. It is snow white." And as for the scene in which Mr Thornton stands at his window, glowering and yearning and smouldering, as he watches Margaret's carriage leave ah, be still my beating heart.
But there must be a limit. Wet shirts I can take. Passionate growling I can take. But completely abandoning all sense of time, place and authenticity for cheap and unnecessary - romantic clinches I can't. North and South, I was surprised to discover on a swift glance over, is a very romantic book, much more so than the restrained smiles and blushes of Austen. There's heaving and trembling of the type I'd be embarrassed to encounter in a Mills and Boon. Therefore I cannot for the life of me understand why someone would think this insufficient and, in some spurious attempt to perhaps introduce more of action and activity, uproot the final declaration scene from a perfectly respectable drawing room to a train station. Yes. A public train station.
In the book, hero and heroine have a passionate reconciliation in a drawing room, there is trembling, there is heaving, there is simmering, there is physical contact. It's very sweet.
The series, however, although the dialogue remains faithful in spirit if not in letter, goes all Brief Encounter. The two lovers meet entirely by chance at a train station like something in a modern day romantic comedy, proceed to snog vigorously in full public view and then she joins him on a Northbound train leaving the man she keeps refusing to marry staring wistfully after them from his Southbound train carriage. I don't mind the snogging, it's not in the book but I'm a 21st century girl and I like my romantic pay-off, but no Victorian gentlewoman would ever ever ever indulge in heavy petting at a train station. It would have been as shocking if they had stripped off and gone at it like monkeys. And no matter how strong willed or brave and no matter how inevitable their marriage, no respectable woman would throw herself upon a gentleman's protection at a train station. And, quite frankly, considerations of appropriate behaviour aside, I think it was downright mean-spirited of them to throw themselves at each other right in front of Henry Lennox and his puppy dog eyes and breaking heart.
I think perhaps if the series had been less good up at that point I would have been less disappointed. But it was a miserably misguided end to an otherwise thoroughly excellent adaptation.
