the BBC's last Expectations

TV BBC1 controller Danny Cohen is publicising some of the drama coming soon to the main channel with perhaps the most suprising inclusion a new Kudos series, Morton, by Frank Spotnitz which if it's the same bloke was an Exec producer and writer on many of Chris Carter's series including The X-Files, Millenium and the doomed Harsh Realms.  Interesting too to see Heidi Thomas of nu-Upstairs back with another six part period something or other.

The biggest disappointment is the appearance of another adaptation of Dickens's Great Expectations from Sarah Phelps who admittedly worked on a good Twist a few years ago. Disappointing because the BBC's last Expectations was the sumptuous Tony Marchant effort just over ten years ago, still young enough to have the new BBC logo on the front, with Ioan Gruffudd as Pip and and amazing Charlotte Rampling as Miss Havisham and which if it was broadcast now would, other than having been shot on film rather than HD sit perfectly well in the schedules.

In other words, this feels to me like the BBC making the same thing over again all too soon, when and I think you can guess where this is going, there are dozens of bits of theatre which haven't been reproduced in decades for television, work which is equally dramatic and interesting but because of the unnatural bias towards adapting prose into television which still continues to be a weird fit for me. But honestly it's a crime that we might never see Helen McCrory as The Dutchess of Malfi. Or whatever.