Lady Chatterley's Lover

Remember the orange paperback being passed round the classroom with relevant pages turned down? Seems so tame now.

it was mainly the judge who asked 'would you let your servants read this book'? that got the book released for sale, and amazingly, only in about 1962 if I remember correctly.

to say the judiciary was slightly out of touch with the common man [even the one on the Clapham omnibus] was an amazement, even at that time.

I will be watching it anyway, as I never saw the Sean Bean programme [pity.]

The judge in question actually wondered whether it was "a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?" - so presumably in his world wives as well as servants had to have their reading matter censored!

wow Ana, am mightily impressed by your memory!

I thought I was doing well to even remember the servants thing, I often can't remember what I did last week.

I had a vague memory that wives were involved, so I looked it up

Teetime I have just read the book of Cold Comfort Farm, for the first time. I saw the production with Rufus Sewell in it when it was on TV recently and I agree. It was also one of the few adaptations that is at least as good as the book - it had Kate Beckinsale, Joanna Lumley, Ian McKellen, Rufus Sewell, Eileen Atkins, Stephen Fry, Miriam Margolyes, Rupert Penry-Jones and Angela Thorne - to name less than half the cast. I have even bought the DVD to show to DD and DGC when they are next here.

Was Rufus Sewell in a series about building a cathedral, with Ian McShane? Can't remember what it was called.

Pillars of the Earth, dj?

Teetime has gone into Sunday afternoon reverie about Rufus Sewell

When we moved to our current house, our next door neighbour had just retired as head of English at the local grammar school. She told us that D H Lawrence was her uncle. She was born in Nottingham in around 1924 and remembers visiting him on several occasions. He died in 1930, so she only had very early memories of him, but given her career path I think he must have had at least some influence on her life!

dj This sounds like it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pillars_of_the_Earth_%28miniseries%29

Oh bother, I was busy earlier and missed it, now I shall have to get it from catch up tv.

That's the one, Greyduster and Elegran. Thanks.

Tonight's production wasn't that good IMO. We watched it and weren't impressed. Left us shrugging and thinking, 'So what?'

I wouldn't want to see it again.

Wow, Indinana, did she use his literature when teaching?
I used to use his short stories and poetry.

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?

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

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?

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.

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!

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