Lady Chatterley's Lover

Oooh, I'm off into town later Ruby, I'll order it from the library!

rose and anyone else interested - Sean Bean is available on dvd.

annsixty Yes, I saw that, but then I love the great Sir Peter (the town's hero, well, one of them, lol). Very funny and lovely to reminisce over the 70's, even the decor. And Danny Baker has been too long off our television screens, maybe waiting a bit for Jonathan Ross to get older and calm down a bit, both of them together would be asking too much!

While I was away I read that the BBC had plans to do more and more programmes of this kind, probably because they feel there is a world market for them. I fear that they are very mistaken in this; may not even bother to watch tonights 'An Inspector Calls'. I agree that they sometimes strike lucky with series such as Poldark but it's impossible to know the chemistry between actors until the programme has been made. Cold Comfort Farm was [and is still] wonderful. 'Mellors' in LCL was quite gorgeous in Game of Thrones, that but it is also incredibly well written [imo].

I also remember it being passed around the playground. As I was only 11 at the time it was never given to me to read and anyway I didn't consider 'Lorna Doone' to be on my 'want to read' list. I'm not sure if the staff ever wondered why 'Lorna Doone' was suddenly so popular and why only a few pages were ever read !!

nfk lol. I read an interview with the actor who plays Mellors (can't remember his name) where he says his mum asked him "Are there noises?" and he replied "Yes" and she said "I shan't be watching then"

He was apparently in Game of Thrones (which I haven't watched) and he said there was a lot more sex in that show.

Yes, I watched it ann! Poor Danny, slapped around the face by a flailing organ...

As Margaret has mentioned the "p" word did any one else watch Cradle to Grave on BBC 2 with Peter Kay? The last few minutes when the teenagers went to the theatre to see Oh Calcutta ( I think) will stay with me for some time.

I watched it last night but Mellors had no angry jealous wife and the other lover she had was missing. She also went to Venice with her sister in the book and last night it was just a family party. Still to do it justice it would have needed 3 installments so I was not expecting much.

In the book he put a daisy chain around his penis (that was the part that upset my mother so much!) so I knew I wouldn't see that.
It was OK. No violence and nice pictures of an English wood. Usual BBC level I think.

Lona
ann I find that's a problem even when I have been impressed!

Lona My childhood was spent 3 miles from Eastwood where Lawrence lived and the town is still very proud of it's association with him and trades on it.We went to stay with friends who still lived there 2/3 years ago and went to his old home which is now a museum.As I can't remember anything about it I couldn't have been impressed.

Jane Not " the beast with two backs" then?

www.google.co.uk/search?q=bernardine+wall&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari#imgrc=wvtIyswPOIJ_vM%3A This woman, Bernardine Wall, was the last witness in the trial. She was 23 and had just graduated from Newnham College Cambridge and testified that she had read both the expurgated and unexpurgated versions of LCL. The judge asked the jury to consider whether she appeared to have been corrupted by the experience!
I found out years later that my parents had had a copy at home, at the time when it was being furtively read in the school toilets. It had been on our bookshelves all the time, covered in brown paper with 'Animals Without Backbones' written on the spine!

I can't watch that unless I sign in and confirm I'm over 18.

I watched it, but agree, no passion and quiet dull. I confess I've never read the book, not even the well thumbed bits

how could we forget that scene, Teetime?

But for anyone who has...

I shan't be able to see this until the end of the week but I agree not DHLs best- Sons and Lovers now that was wonderful and gave many insights into the author's relationships with women. Just to give it a mention Women in Love was really good and I shall never forget Ollie and Alan wrestling!!!

Well, it passed some time and there was nothing much else on TV!
I didn't think there was any chemistry between them, I thought they were both badly cast. I really watched because I'm a fan of James Norton, and I thought he was good.

Yes dj I believe she did but, like you, his poetry rather than his novels. I don't think she had a lot of time for his literature in general, but she was very proud of the family connection. She was passionate about Shakespeare and lamented the move away from teaching his works in schools - she always claimed it was because the 'modern day teachers don't have the faintest idea how to teach Shakespeare.' (she was very disparaging of the decline in educational standards, particularly at teacher training level ). She was a real character, one of the 'old school', and a wonderful old lady. It was so very sad to see her quite rapid decline into bewildered dementia, that sharp wit and keen intelligence just switching off

Watched it last and really enjoyed it. Although I much preferred Sean Bean. As a bit of rough, this Mellors was a bit too soft.

coolgran neither did I, no chemistry. Dull as ditchwater.

Not the best adaptation last night I agree. Swept by too quickly in a sea of metaphors.

I remember there was a copy of LCL in our English class at school and it was being passed around by the boys. Our dear old teacher, Jittery Jess (she'd had a bad shaky condition) got very cross and went for the Head of Department so they threw the copy out of the window. He was livid with us and asked us where it was. He looked straight at me and asked if I knew where it was. I took the literal view and as I had no knowledge of its actual location was able to be reasonably honest and said 'No'! Not my best moment. Later when at college it was required reading and my mother found it in my room. At lunch it was beside my plate and she demanded to know why I had such 'filthy book' in my possession. How times and mores have changed!

I like and admire his poetry but have always been a bit sniffy about his novels. I rather suspect that the man really didn't like women much – or at all. Of all his novels, Lady Chatterly seems to me the weakest and most boring and I wonder how a TV adaptation copes with the Nottingham vernacular that makes the book almost unreadable.

Interestingly – at least to me – my Professor, when I was an undergraduate, was one of the defence witnesses at the obscenity trial. I am generally pretty much opposed to censorship, so all credit to her (Barbara Hardy); it wasn't just the judge's old-fashioned comment about wive and servants that allowed the book to be widely published, however second-rate the novel is.

Yes, Bean had it in spades....though I didn't really like the book anyway!

Eloethan I agree. But most 'original' writing these days seems to be mostly complicated 'psychological' dramas or murder stories.

However, there are shedloads of other novels, modern and classical, which could be successfully adapted for television; for example, I know these are probably very unfashionable but I'd like to see something by Mary Webb (highly romantic, I know!) or some of the other lesser-known novelists. Alternatively....Virginia Woolf? Susan Hill?
I loved the older version of Mapp and Lucia (with McEwan and Scales) - the recent version simply didn't hit the mark for me. But there are other E.F. Bensons too.

Any other suggestions?

Have to say I didn't feel the passion tonight between Lady C and the gamekeeper. Give me Sean Bean any time.........

In her column in The I the other week, Janet Street Porter wrote an article about the shortage of British original drama on the TV. She pointed to the fact the Downtown Abbey (which while I feel it is ridiculous, I must admit I quite enjoy) is in many ways a re-hash of Upstairs Downstairs. She quoted several series and dramas that were re-makes of previous successes. And now we have Lady Chatterley and soon An Inspector Calls and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Does this indicate a shortage of creative minds or is it just too much effort to write something original when there are plenty of "golden oldies" to be adapted?