Good Sense Prevails!

“Colonel Brandon is an exceptional man, I think. What sadness he has known. He kept faithful to his first love even after she had been torn away from him, even after she was dead. He is the true romantic, I think. It is not what we say or feel that makes us what we are, it is what we do… or fail to do.” So speaks a wiser Marianne to her sister Elinor, near the story’s completion, having learnt some of life’s lessons the hard way, resulting in a near-fatal illness. Andrew Davies’ three-part adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility” was exceptional; well acted, well directed, fast moving - much more so than his most famous six-part adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” - and completely compelling, emotionally. For me, David Morrissey gave the standout performance as the highly moral Colonel Brandon. He showed that a man does not have to lie in another person’s lap in order to prove himself passionate, quite the contrary. While Willoughby played with the affections of numerous young women, regardless of consequence, Brandon’s steadfastness won through making him all the more desirable. Marianne’s initial objection to the Colonel, their age difference, is irrelevant in the end. You cannot choose with whom you fall in love and it is surprising, perhaps, that Brandon didn’t fall for the more sensible, though none-less-passionate, Elinor but, true to life, the narrative isn’t so predictable. Would all men were wholly like Colonel Brandon but I suspect most contain some of his good nature together with a little of Willoughby’s deceitfulness… sadly.

“Sense and Sensibility” is the latest in a recent spate of television adaptations of classic novels, all of which have proved excellent. Despite it being seemingly about manners, it has more of the wildness of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” about it than does the earlier “Pride and Prejudice”. When “Sense and Sensibility” began on New Year’s Day, despite the controversial opening, I thought it was going to err on the side of conservatism and, indeed, it wasn’t as radical an adaptation as the preceding five-part presentation of “Oliver Twist” which ran nightly on BBC One in the run up to Christmas. Timothy Spall transformed the character of Fagin, from what we’ve come to expect, and made it refreshingly his own. Before this, there was the female equivalent of “Pickwick Papers” in the five-hour dramatisation of three novels by Elizabeth Gaskell resulting in “Cranford”, another serial with a strong moral backbone. ITV responded to the BBC’s offerings with a new version of E. M. Forster’s “A Room with a View”, starring the gorgeous Elaine Cassidy, and, on Boxing Day, with another Dickens, “The Old Curiosity Shop”, featuring Derek Jacobi in the role of Little Nell’s gambling-addicted Grandfather. There are more costume dramas in production, to be shown at the end of the year. The BBC have yet to cast their four-part adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” but I can’t wait! It is one of my favourite novels, if not my favourite. I only hope four episodes is long enough to do it justice. ITV will counteract with another version of the aforementioned “Wuthering Heights”. I hope they are both as good as the current crop of dramatisations and, in particular, as strong in every area as “Sense and Sensibility”.