Top posts

• Andrew Davies, The King of Adapters

  18 September 2016 ( #Andrew Davies, #Austen, #Bridget Jones, #Dickens, #Eliot, #House of Cards, #Hugo, #Les Misérables, #Pride & Prejudice, #Thackeray, #Tolstoy, #War & Peace )

  Andrew Davies is pretty pleased with life. As the country’s most fêted TV screenwriter of epic classic adaptations, he has much to be pleased about, but right now his blue eyes are twinkling particularly strongly. First (but probably not foremost) is...

• Jim Broadbent

  01 September 2016 ( #adaptations, #Asterix, #Bridget Jones, #Game of Thrones, #Harry Potter, #Jim Broadbent, #Narnia, #The Go-Between, #The Secret Agent, #Vanity Fair, #War & Peace )

  Jim Broadbent appearing in a series of adaptations: Colin Jones (Bridget Jones) Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky (War & Peace) Tony Webster (The Sense of an Ending) Old Leo (The Go-Between) Chief Inspector Heat (The Secret Agent) Astérix: The Mansions of the...

• Shakespeare sur France Inter

  03 August 2016 ( #Cyrano de Bergerac, #Hamlet, #Henry V, #House of Cards, #K. Branagh, #Much Ado about Nothing, #Othello, #Richard III, #Romeo+Juliet, #Shakespeare )

  Plus de 400 ans après son trépas, six pieds sous terre, Shakespeare nous parle encore et toujours. Shakespeare contemporain © Getty / Fotosearch Et plus que jamais, ce bon vieux Will a pas mal de choses à nous raconter sur notre condition humaine, qu’il...

• New adaptations in 2015

  31 December 2014 ( #alexandre dumas, #bbc, #hilary mantel, #itv, #jk rowling, #Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, #Susanna Clarke, #the casual vacancy, #the musketeers, #wolf hall )

  Wolf Hall (January, BBC2) Former Homeland star Damian Lewis and Shakespearean actor Mark Rylance take top billing in this lavish six-part adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. The tale of Tudor intrigue...

• Modern Film Adaptations Of Jane Austen, Ranked

  15 January 2017 ( #BBC, #Clueless, #Emma, #Jane Austen, #Persuasion, #popular culture, #Pride & Prejudice, #Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, #The Lizzie Bennet Diaries )

  Dec. 16 is Jane Austen’s 239th birthday, and in the past two centuries, her seminal novels have been read and reread passionately by generations. More than that, however, they’ve captured the imagination of the culture in a way few other authors’ works...

• The Birth of Austenmania

  01 January 2016 ( #BBC, #Clueless, #Emma, #Jane Austen, #Persuasion, #popular culture, #Pride & Prejudice, #Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, #The Lizzie Bennet Diaries )

  “First there is no Jane Austen and then it’s raining Jane Austen.” When a flurry of cinematic adaptations saw Austenmania hit Hollywood in 1995, even the filmmakers themselves seemed at a loss to say why: Doug McGrath, the director of Emma , speaking...

• The BBC informs, educates and entertains – but in what order?

  17 April 2015 ( #BBC, #Broadcasting House, #educate, #entertain, #history of the BBC, #inform, #John Reith, #National Theatre, #The Proms )

  In the early years of the 1930s, the sculptor Eric Gill was commissioned to carve an imageof a sower for the entrance hall of Broadcasting House. “Broadcast” is the old word for scattering seed: you cast it far and wide and good things grow. As a preacher...

• Top British historic TV locations to visit in 2014

  01 April 2014 ( #BBC, #Brideshead Revisited, #Call the Midwife, #Death Comes to Pemberley, #Doctor Who, #Downton Abbey, #Game of Thrones, #Sherlock, #Tess of the D'Urbervilles )

  The UK is jam-packed with eerie abodes, royal stately properties and historic sites shrouded in mystery and legend. Below, we’ve listed 17 of our favourites, all of which are open to visitors so you can experience them in real life… 2. The Historic Dockyard,...

• The House of Mirth (Edith Wharton / Terence Davies)

  06 April 2015 ( #art, #Edith Wharton, #Gillian Anderson, #imagery, #Lily Bart, #music, #Terence Davies, #The House of Mirth, #visuals )

  Introduction Seeing between the lines Music Art and the visual Art Conclusion Notes Bibliography Introduction Both Edith Wharton’s 1905 novel, The House of Mirth, and Terence Davies’s adaptation (2000), are complex, multi-layered, subtle, and challenging...

• EM Forster's Howards End on BBC1

  16 February 2017 ( #Agrégation, #BBC, #BBC1, #CAPES, #concours, #EM Forster, #Howards End )

  Hayley Atwell, Matthew Macfadyen and Tracey Ullman will star in the long-awaited adaptation of EM Forster's Howards End on BBC1. The series originally received the green light in December 2015 and was expected to air last year. That was the last we heard...

• books to read in 2017 before their TV adaptations air

  28 December 2016 ( #American Gods, #his dark materials, #JK Rowling, #Neil Gaman, #Outlander, #Poldark, #WInston Graham )

  Book to TV adaptations were plentiful in 2016 and as a new year begins we can expect to see those "soon to be TV series" shelves in our bookshops filling up fast. Here are the books you need to read before they hit the small screen... 1. The Cormoran...

• The Go-Between - Review

  01 September 2016 ( #Adrian Hodges, #BBC, #BBC One, #classic, #LP Hartley, #review, #The Go-Between )

  Another week, another classic about illicit spooning at the dawn of the 20th century. Where the BBC’s fresh take on Lady Chatterley’s Lover hollowed out the original and injected its own up-to-date agitprop, The Go-Between(BBC One) kept faith with LP...

• Britain's nostalgia industry

  27 July 2016 ( #Arthur Ransome, #Brideshead Revisited, #Call the Midwife, #Downton Abbey, #Downtonising, #Harry Potter, #Swallows and Amazons )

  Ron Howard had a theory about why the US sitcom Happy Days was such a hit. The Oscar-winning director, who played Richie Cunningham in the show, argued that central to its appeal was that it was set in the 1950s, before Vietnam, drugs and hippies, when...

• Game of Thrones: Don't read unless you have seen the latest (sixth) season

  29 June 2016 ( #books, #Game of Thrones, #George RR Martin, #HBO, #spoilers, #The Winds of Winter, #TV series )

  A nother year, another season of Game of Thrones on television. If only the books arrived at such a steady pace. The first book in George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Game of Thrones, came out 20 years ago this September. The succeeding...

• Books on TV: adaptations to watch for

  19 June 2016 ( #His Dark Materials, #Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, #Maddaddam, #The Man in the High Castle, #The Night Manager, #War & Peace, #Wolf Hall )

  Audiences have been watching for decades as Hollywood tries to cram its favorite books into two-hour movies, with varying degrees of success. Now, however, television is catching up, and it offers one important thing that movies just can't: time. Deep...

• 9 books to read before their TV adaptations air

  29 December 2015 ( #Beowulf, #Dickens, #His Dark Materials, #Outlander, #Poldark, #The Night Manager, #War & Peace )

  War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy Lily James, Paul Dano and James Norton will bring Tolstoy's 19th century literary classic to life for the BBC in the New Year but book lovers argue that no TV adaptation can – or ever has – done justice to the Russian author's...

• GoT: 2016? The Winds of Winter release date

  10 September 2015 ( #A Song of ice and Fire, #book series, #Game of Thrones, #Georges RR Martin, #GoT, #GRRM, #THe winds of WInter )

  Game of Thrones fans might have all but given up on hopes of reading George R. R. Martin’s next A Song of Ice and Fire book ‘The Winds of Winter’ before the Sun turns into a red giant and engulfs the Earth, but finally we have something resembling a release...

• Pride & Prejudice 20 years ago

  03 October 2015 ( #Andrew Davies, #BBC, #Jane Austen, #Leo Tolstoy, #popular culture, #Pride & Prejudice, #War & Peace )

  Can it really be 20 years since Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle gripped the nation as on-off lovers Elizabeth Bennet and Fitz-william Darcy in BBC1’s mega mini-series Pride And Prejudice? The critically acclaimed six-parter was a huge success that made...

• A tool to compare the GoT TV series and the GoT books

  19 May 2015 ( #chart, #D&D, #Game of Thrones, #George RR Martin, #GoT, #HBO, #TV vs. books )

  For Game of Thrones fans wondering how the books and TV show differ from each other, this is a greater gift than having The Sight. This excellent chart plots the Game of Thrones episodes against their corresponding chapters in George RR Martin’s A Song...

• JK Rowling's adult novel on BBC One

  22 November 2014 ( #BBC, #BBC One, #Harry Potter, #HBO, #JK Rowling, #Sarah Phelps, #The Casual Vacancy )

  Keeley Hawes and Julia McKenzie star in the first image from new JK Rowling drama The Casual Vacancy. The Harry Potter writer's first adult novel is being transformed into a three-hour miniseries for the BBC and HBO, with Hawes and McKenzie set to play...

• Death Comes To Pemberley, a Pride and Prejudice sequel

  07 July 2014 ( #BBC, #Death Comes To Pemberley, #Jane Austen, #PD James, #period drama, #Pride & Prejudice, #sequel )

  At first, all you can take in of Hardcastle Crags, near Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, is its unspoilt beauty. Steeply rising wooded slopes look down on a rocky valley with a river winding on ahead. You could spend a very pleasant day here eating ice cream,...

• Jamaica Inn: filmed on location

  21 April 2014 ( #BBC, #BBC One, #Daphne du Maurier, #Emma frost, #Jamaica Inn, #Jessica Brown Findlay, #on location )

  Jessica Brown Findlay (Downton Abbey), Sean Harris (Harry Brown) and Matthew McNulty (The Paradise) star in the new BBC adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Jamaica Inn (on tonight at 9pm on BBC1). The new three-part period drama, set in Cornwall, tells...

• Lyme Park aka Pemberley

  18 March 2014 ( #BBC, #Jane Austen, #Lyme Hall, #on location, #Peak District, #Pemberley, #Pride & Prejudice )

  When a wet-shirted Colin Firth strode into Jennifer Ehle’s life, an iconic TV moment was born. Lyme Hall played the part of Pemberley in the BBC’s 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and the lake into which Darcy dived (or a stuntman,...

• Very first official broadcast on British Television recreated

  26 August 2016 ( #BBC, #BBC One, #Dickens, #Dickensian, #Miss Havisham, #re-working )

  The very first official broadcast on British Television is being recreated by the BBC exactly 80 years after it made history. Television's Opening Night: How the Box was Born will re-stage the event that originally took place at Alexandra Palace on 2nd...

• The Secret Agent: a timely BBC adaptation

  28 July 2016 ( #BBC, #BBC1, #espionage, #Joseph Conrad, #terrorism, #The Secret Agent )

  s they watch a suicide bomber with explosives strapped to his chest walk through a London that feels on the brink of political collapse, some viewers may suspect that the new TV adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s novel, The Secret Agent , has been tweaked...