The book's the thing

 But sometimes, the TV adaptations are even better

 

Ever since I first read Riders in the early 90s, I have been a fan of Jilly Cooper. So, you’d think I would be delighted when I read that her second bonkbuster, Rivals, was being turned into a TV series, with a star-studded cast. But instead, all I felt was trepidation for fear that one of my favourite books would be ruined by a less than successful transition to the small screen.

 

And while, like most other Jilly Cooper fans, I was appalled by the choice of actor to play the upper-class cad, Rupert Campbell Black (who chooses a dark-haired, swarthy guy to play the ice-blond RCB?) the series itself left me exhilarated. It captured the joyous excess of the 90s to perfection, bringing a pre-PC era to life, with its large hair and larger appetites, and its cheerful celebration of conspicuous consumption. By the time the series ended, even the dark-haired Rupert Campbell Black had begun to grow on me, as I began the impatient wait for series two.

 

But while Rivals more than lived up to the rambunctious promise of the book, there is a vanishingly small number of TV adaptations that do justice to the books they are based on. Which is why it makes sense to give a shout-out to those who have succeeded. So here, in no particular order of importance, are some TV series that have done their best – or even better than – by the books that were their source material.

 

Slow Horses

 

The first show that comes to mind is, of course, Slow Horses, the series based on the spy novels by Mick Herron. In fact, I am going to go out on a limb and say that TV series is far better than the books. The plots have been tightened, the climaxes are far more tightly crafted, and the performances of the actors – especially Gary Oldman, who is sublime as Jackson Lamb – provide an edge that the books don’t always have. 

 

Apples Don’t Fall

 

Liane Moriarty is another author who has only gained from having her books subtly changed for the streaming services. Both Big Little Lies and Apples Never Fall were great books which I enjoyed immensely when they first came out and I was a bit sceptical about whether they would survive being transposed to America from Australia. As it turned out, I need not have worried. Both the books were even better as TV series – thanks, in no small measure, to the assured performances of such stars as Nicole Kidman and Annette Benning. 

 

Disclaimer

 

More recently, the TV series that has captured the spirit of the book perfectly is Disclaimer. The slow burn of the book, with new details being drip-fed to the reader, until you are hit by the sledgehammer of the revelation at the end, which turns the entire narrative upside down, depended on a multiplicity of narrative voices. And there was a real danger that the plot would be overshadowed by the erotica in a visual medium like television. But as it turned out, the TV series was pitch perfect, with marquee performances by such stars as Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline and Sacha Baron Cohen. And the denouement (no spoilers, don’t worry!) was as chilling in the series as it was in the book.

To binge or not to binge

That is the question, as streaming services make it all too easy to devour entire series in the course of an evening

I must admit that I am a little bleary-eyed as I sit down to write this column. And that’s because the second season of Sacred Games dropped on Netflix at midnight and I stayed up late – as you do – to binge-watch. All I managed were three episodes, though, before sleep got the better of me. But I am pretty sure that if the season had been released in the afternoon, I would have swallowed all of it down in one greedy gulp.

But as I resolutely turned the TV off and sloped off to bed, I couldn’t help but wonder if this kind of binge-watching was the best way to see a show. Would it be better, I pondered, if TV series like these dropped one episode at a time and allowed us all a little time to absorb events and plot twists. Watching it in one go, I was a bit overwhelmed by all the turns in the story, and felt, on occasion, that the narrative was getting away from me.

One reason why these thoughts popped up in my head last night was because I had just caught the first episode of the second season of Succession, and had enjoyed it thoroughly. It left me craving for more, given that only one episode drops every week. But that interval also gave me enough breathing space to think about the story so far, to speculate about what could or would come next, and to discuss the episode threadbare with my friends and family.

Much the same thing had been true of Big Little Lies. That show, too, was not available to binge-watch unless you waited for a month and a half for all the episodes to be released. And in retrospect, I think the series benefitted from this kind of drip-drip-drip release. For one thing, most of us saw the episodes at much the same time, so we could have a kind of cooler-talk conversation about it for days on end on social media. We could marvel at the sinister edge Meryl Streep brought to her role as a bereaved mother. We could discuss whether Laura Dern’s unhinged portrayal cut too close to the bone or was just madly over the top. And we could all admire the steely presence of Nicole Kidman who was the perfect counterfoil to Streep.

The week’s gap gave us enough time to think about the show as we waited impatiently for the next episode to drop. That sense of delayed gratification meant that we enjoyed the next installment even more than we would have if we’d been speeding through the episodes late into the night. And the show itself benefitted by having its shelf life increased to the six to eight weeks that people spent watching it – unlike binge-watched shows that can only hold the public imagination for a week or so at best.

I know what you’re thinking. There is no law that says that you have to binge-watch a show just because it is released in its entirety on streaming services. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and insisting that you watch every episode of Made in Heaven the very same evening it appears on your TV screen.

But honestly, how can you possibly resist? Especially when a show is as compelling as Made in Heaven, with the narrative propelling you forward from one episode to another almost as if you had no free will in the matter? I certainly didn’t. I kept promising myself that this would be the absolute last episode I watched that night. But when the cliffhanger presented itself and a little box on my screen started uploading the next episode, I found myself powerless to power off the TV. I ended up going at bed at 4 am, but if you ask me, it was totally worth it.

Perhaps this is the time to confess that I have form in this matter. Even before streaming services made zombies out of all of us, I was a greedy devourer of box-sets. It was 24 that started me off, with its conceit of all the action taking place in real time. As Jack Bauer tried to save the world (okay, America) one torture-session at a time, I watched in horrified fascination until the sun came up in the morning. More recently, the crazy antics of Carrie Mathison in Homeland kept me up all night as well. And it isn’t just action series or spy thrillers – that are geared to keep us on the edge of our seats – that have this effect on me. I was similarly transfixed by the two seasons of The Marvellous Mrs Maisel.

But while shows like Fleabag (both seasons of which I binge-watched shamelessly) are perfect for being consumed in one giant bite, given their linear form, clear narrative arc and economical style of story-telling, others with a more sprawling structure benefit from deferred viewing. And after last night, I think the second season of Sacred Games could fall into that category. This is a show that needs space to breathe, and when we watch it, so do we.

So, from now on, it’s only one episode a night for me. But you go right ahead and binge if you want to. I will see you on the other side.

Big Little Bestsellers

And can they make a seamless transition to our TV screens?

I discovered Liane Moriarty (what a splendid surname for a writer of murder – well, sort of – mysteries to have, by the way) rather late in the day. Somehow, her major breakthrough novel, The Husband’s Secret, passed me by when it released in 2013. It was only after I read her 2014 book, Big Little Lies, that I was intrigued enough to go back and see what else she had written. Suffice to say, I was not disappointed. And then, last year Moriarty released her latest novel, Truly Madly Guilty (yes, she is rather prolific that way) and I was well and truly hooked. And like most newly-converted people, I went around recommending her to all my friends and acquaintances (“Yes, yes, I know, you’ve never heard of her; but believe me, she’s fantastic!”).

Well, it now turns out that Liane Moriarty will no longer be such a tough sell in these parts. And that’s because Little Big Lies, far and away her best book so far, has been made into a television series starring such A-list stars as Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, with a cast that includes Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, Alexander Skarsgard and Zoe Kravtiz, and is playing on a TV screen right in your living room every week.

Of course, it’s much more fun to watch if you haven’t read the book – and don’t worry, this piece contains no spoilers at all. But even those of us who know how it all ends, can’t help but get caught up with the twists and turns of the plot. And it doesn’t hurt that both Witherspoon and Kidman are rather easy on the eye, as are all the lush shots of rolling beaches, with their full complement of sun, sea and surf.

So, how does the TV series compare with the book? Well, I was prepared to be all sniffy about it, but as it turns out, the TV version captures the novel rather well, with its mixture of domestic drama, dark comedy, schoolyard (yes, I kid you not!) politics, sexual tension and, of course, suspense thriller. There is a murder at the heart of it, but that’s just the hook on which to hang a great story on. And the story survives the transition to a different medium rather well.

As I watched the latest episode this week, I started to wonder which other book had made the transition to TV series quite so successfully. And here, just off the top of my head, is my entirely subjective list of the top three:

Pride and Prejudice: The BBC adaptation of the Jane Austen novel aired more than 20 years ago, with Colin Firth playing Mr Darcy to Jennifer Ehle’s Elizabeth Bennet. But even two decades on, the show lives on in our collective memory thanks to that one scene of Firth emerging from a lake in a wet white shirt and bumping into Elizabeth. It is a tribute to Andrew Davies, who wrote the screenplay, that even though this scene never occurs in Austen’s book, it has become a seminal moment in popular culture.

But leaving wet shirts aside for a moment, this was a show that captured the intelligence and spark of Elizabeth Bennet, the constrained lives of women of that era, and raised an elegant brow at the snobbery and elitism that prevailed in the England of that day. Quite brilliant.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: Anyone who has seen the TV series that came out in 1979 (do get a box set if you haven’t) will remember this because of Sir Alec Guinness’ star turn as legendary spymaster, George Smiley, who is brought out of retirement to hunt for a mole buried deep into the heart of the British secret services. Guinness was brilliant in this adaptation of John Le Carre’s novel of the same name, so much so that the author admitted that, “If I were to keep one filmed version of my work, this would be it.”

And it is easy to understand why. The plot unravels with the same stately pace that Le Carre brings to his own writing. Each character is fleshed out into three dimensions. The mechanics of spycraft are brought to light in intricate detail. And then, there is the quiet but unmistakable presence of Guinness’ Smiley, all repressed passion and suppressed feelings. An absolute masterpiece.

Game of Thrones: My chronology is a little off when it comes to the Game of Thrones books by George RR Martin. I was introduced to him by the first two seasons of the TV show, which I binge-watched while on vacation. Appetite appropriately whetted, I came back home to download all his books and devoured all five of them in one greedy gulp. So, when season three launched, I was prepared to be disappointed. After all, I knew what was going to happen, so how much fun could it be? Short answer: a lot!

The TV series brought the fantasy to life with such panache that it mattered little that I knew how things were going to turn out. I knew what was coming in the Red Wedding, how the dragons would save the fireproof Daenerys Targaryen, and how Arya Stark would hit rock-bottom. But seeing it on screen still brought a fresh thrill. It helped, of course, that as the series moved along, Martin and the screenplay writers shook things up by varying the endings of various storylines, to give us smug readers a bit of a jolt.