Arthur & George
Adaptation of Julian Barnes' novel about Arthur Conan Doyle's attempt to clear the name of George Edalji;
a half-Indian, vicar's son who was wrongly convicted of a bizarre crime in the 1800s.
This adaptation is in three episodes. The first aired on March 2nd on ITV. I think the other two episodes will air on the 9th and 16th.
I've uploaded a standard definition version of episode 1 to ADrive. I do have a HD version as well if anybody is interested.
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Arthur & George S01E03 SD
Arthur & George S01E02 SD
Here's The Guardian's review:
The middle of the night, somewhere in the countryside. A full moon hides bashfully behind the clouds, only occasionally peeking out. Mist lies in smoky wisps on the ground. Baskervillian in feel? A little, maybe, but this is agricultural, not moorland. There is a man creeping about in the dark, and a large beast; but it’s a horse, and this time the animal is victim. The man sticks it in the stomach with something sharp; a Reichenbach of horse juice cascades out.
This is one of many attacks on farm animals in the parish of Great Wyrley. Suspicion quickly falls on a young man called George Edalji. Well, the evidence is pretty damning: he’s mixed race (I doubt anyone ever accused rural Staffordshire, 1903, of being the epicentre of either intelligence or tolerance). His British-Indianness should be enough for a conviction. Never mind that he’s a goody two-shoes vicar’s son and solicitor who wouldn’t hurt the flies swarming around a dying horse’s stab wound.
George Edalji – the George of Arthur & George (ITV) – is banged up, for three years. On his release, he gets in touch with the Arthur of Arthur & George, a very different man from a very different world, the famous writer and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Sir Arthur was listless from grief following the death of his first wife, and guilty about the (overlapping) feelings he had for his second. (It was about as honourable as guilt can be, given there had only been some electricity between him and Miss Leckie, nothing more. If just thinking about it counts as doing it, then surely most people are guilty of Conan Doyle adultery.) He was also feeling a little tired of his famous deer-stalkered creation. So Sir Arthur enthusiastically embraced the challenge of righting a wrong and – once he’d learned how to pronounce it correctly, with the stress on the first syllable, like edelweiss – clearing Edalji’s name.
I have clumsily pickpocketed a trick from Julian Barnes, on whose novel this three-part drama is based. In the book Arthur’s sections are written in the past tense, George’s in the present. It gives the sections a different vibe – Arthur’s more established and establishment, George’s more urgent and immediate – to reflect the characters’ different worlds and stations, and to underline the unlikeliness of their meeting. Present-tense George also gives the whole book contemporary feel and resonance: this may be about something that happened more than a century ago, but prejudice is alive and well today; race, identity, (in)justice, morality and truth couldn’t be more relevant, in rural Staffordshire (I’m guessing) as well as everywhere else.
This adaptation is less subtle, less clever and more straightforward, as adaptations tend to be. It’s more about plot than anything else. But happily A&G doesn’t lack for plot. It’s not just historical literary fiction (based on fact) but also a thriller and a detective story, and a really good read (I very much like this book, can you tell?).
It has been translated sympathetically and successfully to the screen, with fine performances. From Martin Clunes as Arthur, honourable and well-intentioned, a man behaving well, though also self-important and a little condescending, and not nearly such a good detective as the one he gave birth to. And from Arsher Ali (so different here from the snaky tabloid hack he was in The Missing) as George – humble and naive, but also resolute and strong. Also from Charles Edwards (once Lady Edith’s ex in Downton Abbey), as Woodie, Sir Arthur’s manservant/secretary/friend/sidekick, something between Jeeves and … Dr Watson. Of course.
That’s my one little moan about this – that the shadow of Sherlock Holmes is everywhere, more so than in the book. Too much so, I think. Not just in the Arthur/Woodie double act, but in the frequent references, the hansom cabs, the London railway stations and train compartments, even in that wispy fog. Almost as if ITV looked enviously at Sherlock on the other side, saw how well it was going down and said: people seem to like this dude, we’ll have a piece of that. So instead of just accepting they had something different – and something brilliant – of their own, and making Arthur & George, they’ve turned it into The Adventure of Arthur and George.
Looks interesting. Thanks for sharing.