Yet another TV adaptation of Great Expectations

My gut response on hearing that the BBC was planning a new adaptation of Great Expectations with Olivia Colman was much the same as Brenda from Bristol’s on hearing there was to be a general election in 2017. Not another one. Nothing against the book or Colman – I’m sure she will make a wonderful Miss Havisham – but the BBC seem to remake Great Expectations every five to 10 years. So how about trying something new? A while later, I noticed on Twitter that the author Philip Hensher felt much the same way and, as he is much better read than me, I asked him what books that had been overlooked he would like to see serialised for TV. Here’s his selection. If you’re determined to stay with Charles Dickens, it’s been a while since either The Pickwick Papers – Toby Jones would be a great Mr Pickwick – and The Old Curiosity Shop have been adapted. And Mrs Lirriper’s Christmas stories would make a fabulous 19th-century “Keeping Up Appearances” series. Anthony Trollope is also due a revival: Orley Farm and He Knew He Was Right would make cracking series. As would William Thackeray’s Pendennis – a story of making it in the big city – and Charlotte Brontë’s Villette, one of the most compelling novels of the 19th century. Moving into the 20th century, there is Elizabeth Bowen’s The Death of the Heart, Ivy Compton-Burnett’s Elders and Betters and Elizabeth Taylor’s The Soul of Kindness. Or how about Joseph Conrad’s Chance, an anti-capitalist seafaring adventure and the biggest success in his lifetime? What books would you like to see adapted for the small screen? Or are you happy with the BBC endlessly repeating Great Expectations and Sense and Sensibility?

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/feb/25/digested-week-greater-expectations-for-bbc-drama-but-not-nigel-farage