Christopher Stevens is one of the most renowned TV critics, known for his incisive commentary on the latest shows and series to hit British screens. In his latest review, he takes aim at the BBC’s revival of a popular classic programme, which attempted to inject a modern “woke” sensibility to old-fashioned humor. Even the star power of Olivia Colman wasn’t enough to save this doomed production. Join us as we explore Stevens’ critique of the programme and the wider implications of the BBC’s decision to embrace woke culture.
Charles Dickens is undoubtedly one of the greatest authors of all time, with his novels providing timeless insight into the social, economic and political issues of his day. However, as we witness with the recent BBC1 adaptation of his famous novel, Great Expectations, Dickens’ work is often misunderstood or misrepresented by modern filmmakers.
The critique of this adaptation is less about the TV show itself and more about the arrogance and ignorance of those who believe they can achieve a better version of a well-known classic. Dickens is known to be ferociously protective of his novels and characters as the characters themselves have often taken years of development to create. This is why an on-screen adaptation of his work should be executed with a sense of humility and respect, but the opposite is often true.
The Great Expectations adaptation was an “awful travesty”. As the critic illustrates, the production failed to capture the essence of Dickens’ haunting work. The killer feature of the novel, and essential to the plot, is Magwitch, a desperate criminal hiding in the marshes. In this adaptation, his menace is replaced by decentness, and his character suffers a twist that’s revealed straight away, losing the original element where the reader is left to imagine his true nature.
There were also issues with the way the plot was adapted. The show begins in the middle, leaving out the scary first chapter, where Magwitch snatches the young Pip in a graveyard at night. In this scene, Magwitch tells Pip about a friend lurking in the darkness, who can find him wherever he hides, a boy may hide, tuck himself up and draw the clothes over his head, but still, the killer will “softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him open”. These lines create intense fear, yet Knight, who adapted the script, discarded them and replaced them with a tin-eared threat that failed to bring the appropriate scare factor.
The production is a clear example of an arrogance that assumes contemporary audiences can’t be scared the way Dickens’ audience was once and needed to be challenged. It is an insult to the level of sophistication and the fear that a reader can feel when going on this journey, where the entire plot revolves around the fear of being caught and brutal murder. Such an interpretation ruins the novel’s historical relevance and Dickens’ authorial intent.
The adaptation also gets it wrong with the characters, many of whom are reworked for a modern audience in a way that is pointless and unbelievable. The most significant example is Pip, who is now a morose and insolent teenager with a foul mouth, replacing his quick-thinking innocent default. Miss Havisham is reimagined as a drug-addled opium smoker instead of a woman obsessed with her own pain, making her character even more neurotic than she was. Joe, who is supposed to be a simpleton, is treated as an almost regular guy; the wife gets a new name, changed to be politically correct, and the list goes on.
It is also worth noting that the show’s production is stagey. Unlike in the novel, the show is shot in a studio, making the visuals look artificial at times. The CGI effects used to create the background are poorly executed, making it appear like a set from a play rather than real life. The lighting is also not favourable, adding to the stage-like feel, making the entire show underlit.
In conclusion, the BBC’s Great Expectations is a great example of how not to adapt a well-known classic. The production is an insult to Dickens’ original work, substituting characters, changing details, and most significantly, failing to convey the original novel’s riveting tension. This adaptation could have been an excellent opportunity to revisit Dickens’ novel, making it interesting and relevant for a modern audience without losing the unique features of the book. But instead, the show brought it down to a poorly executed mess that harks back to the arrogance and ignorance that keeps reinterpreting classic literature over and over again.
In conclusion, Christopher Stevens’ insightful critique of the BBC’s latest adaptation of “A Perfect Spy” provides a necessary evaluation of the current state of the broadcasting giant. While the series, starring Olivia Colman, attempts to tackle contemporary themes, it ultimately falls short of its ambition with an overbearing sense of political correctness. With his sharp observations and unbiased analysis, Stevens reminds us that while well-intentioned, forced wokeness is not the answer to creating diverse and thought-provoking content. It’s time for the BBC to reevaluate its direction and return to the core of what once made it a world-class broadcaster.
