James Walton

Adult entertainment | 16 November 2017

Plus: I still can’t decide about BBC2’s Motherland – but then I don’t think it can quite decide about itself either

issue 18 November 2017

Any readers of the Sun who excitedly tuned in to Howards End on Sunday night with their pause button at the ready will, I fear, have been in for a disappointment. Before the programme went out, the paper had assured them that this new BBC1 adaptation would ‘do a Poldark’, with ‘a hot cast’ providing ‘a sexed-up remake’ of the 1992 Merchant Ivory film. (The sub-editors may have missed a trick by not headlining the piece, ‘It’s E.M. Phwoar-ster!’) In the event, what they got was a quietly thoughtful exploration of Edwardian intellectual life.

The first episode, in fact, didn’t differ very much from the non-sexed-up film version — and when it did, it was generally by being even more faithful to the book. Large sections of the dialogue were lifted so directly from Forster that for much of the time anybody equipped with a paperback could have followed the score the way Tibby did with that of Beethoven’s Fifth in the characteristically unhurried concert scene.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in