BBC Adaptation

Having seen the trailers to the BBC adaptation of Restless, last night I decided to watch Part One. The BBC are well known for their slavish attention to detail and authenticity in period dramas and in this respect Restless is no different. I did read on Wikipedia that they made some mistakes in using the correct period cars. As I'm not an expert on vintage cars I didn't even notice, they all looked authentic enough to me.

What did bother me was the brutal editing of Ruth's personal story, set in 1976. This isn't the first adaptation in which the BBC sacrifice a modern day story to concentrate on a historically based plot. Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong and Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale are two recent examples. In Birdsong nothing remains of Elizabeth and how she discovers her grandfather's, (Stephan Wraysford) story. If you haven't read the book then the television version is  lush with detail and costume, thoroughly enjoyable and exclusively set before and during World War One. We miss out on the wonderful, uncompromising Elizabeth and her equally complicated personal life. Despite the luxurious production and amazingly good-looking Eddie Redmayne it was a huge disappointment to me.

Anyway, for reasons of fairness here is the trailer 

Here is a review of the first episode. And here is another.

Read, watch and reach your own conclusions.

Like Restless, The Thirteenth Tale is not entirely devoid of its modern day setting but again it has been pared down to the bare minimum. Yet another main female character who has been reduced to something necessary in order to tease forth the apparently far more interesting and important revelations from the past. Granted, we do get more of a sense of Margaret's personal history, but yet again, much is lost.

Watch this scary trailer

 

Here's another taster

Here is a review of the adaptation.

Here is an interview with the author, Diane Setterfield.

What is it with the BBC?  Why do they do this? Is it budget  that makes them cut out so many meaningful secondary characters? Ok, admittedly in Restless this doesn't happen in the parts set in World War 2, and we even get to meet, briefly, Kolia. Do they think that the modern viewer can't cope with so many personalities or that we haven't got the attention span to watch anything that lasts longer than 2 episodes? Perhaps it is just my own particular bee in my bonnet which makes me think this. Whatever the reason, it seems telling that in each case it is the story of a main female character which is lost or compromised. I realise that William Boyd wrote the screenplay for Restless and I know he changed various things to make it 'work for telly'. I must go back and watch the interview in which he discusses this in order to see if he mentions any reasons. I must also watch Part Two of the adaptation, perhaps I'm wrong and all the secondary characters from the 1976 era will suddenly appear...