Everyone seems to like the BBC Bleak House – and I agree, it’s superbly done, the second triumph (after Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky) for the Beeb this year. I just wonder if they shouldn’t have been bolder, had the courage of their convictions, and stretched it out. It’s a big book. I’ve read some passages, to compare with what’s on the screen, (no, I’ve never read the whole thing: I inherited a bound set of Dickens from an aunt which take up a whole shelf looking distinguished and serious like proper books next to the rest of my disparate, tatty collection) and it’s clear that Andrew Davies has done a lot of pruning, a lot of compressing. We’re rushing through it, really. What’s the point? Why not make a virtue out of the length of it?
They make a big deal out of presenting it as a soap opera, in line with Dickens’ original serialisation of the book, but then put it out only for half an hour on Thursdays and Fridays – which is hardly different from the usual practice for classic adaptations of an hour every week. If they’re going to do it as a soap opera, do it properly – put it out three, four, five times a week, and make it last. Drag it out, so we get to know the characters better. Dickens does great characters, the cast are excellent, but it’s all going to be over before we’ve settled in.
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