South Riding

I read in the Radio Times that the BBC are airing a more contemporary costume drama called South Riding this year. It is set in the Depression-era North. No not now, but in the 1930's. Andrew Davies who has adapted the novel by Winifred Holtby's 1936 novel says,
"I feel as if we've rediscovered a forgotten masterpiece."

Well, it is a very very good book. A forgotten masterpiece? Have the BBC and he forgotten the brilliant Yorkshire Television Series of the 1970s starring the wonderful Dorothy Tutin and equally well-cast Nigel Davenport?
I received this book as a Sunday School Prize from Hawksworth Methodist Chapel, a village in Yorkshire. This is a very Yorkshire based book. I still have it.

There are many series that I wish I could see again. I would love to see this series again. I still remember the girls in it and their struggles. The faded state of Robert Carne's (Nigel Davenport's) home. The weather. Loving Sarah Burton (Dorothy Tutin)
Why remake a classic series? Yes, it is still relevant today. Has this original series been lost? Where is it now? I dare you to reshow it Yorkshire Television, if it still exists, though Yorkshire Television hardly exists now does it? Find it someone.

And Mr. Davies. Who rediscovered it? Someone at the BBC department that recommends
novels to be adapted...have any of you seen this original series from the classic book by the Yorkshire born writer who died at the age of thirty-seven?

I don't know why exactly but I feel very territorial about this book. I will watch the adaptation. Makes me feel sick because what I want from the BBC is for them to reshow classic adaptations and dramas from past years for new audiences while concentrating on adapting novels and new dramas that have never been made before by them or any other company.

Of course audiences now may find a series from the 1970s too slow, too faded, too whatever they think it is but when my daughters have watched a film from this period they have been impressed by the realism of the cast. They like the fact that the actors don't look airbrushed and perfect and more attractive than the person they are portraying.

The good thing from this article in the Radio Times has made me take down my copy of South Riding from the bookshelf, with Dorothy Tutin on the cover, and I'm going to reread it before watching Andrew Davies' adaptation.