Ned Sherrin has written a new adaptation of the classic E F Benson novel 'Mapp and Lucia' and this is currently being aired on Radio 4. Although Geraldine McEwan and Prunella Scales might have produced the most memorable portrayals of these characters on television, and audio books, this is a superb production. I love the books of E F Benson - they are full of gossip, titanic struggles for supremacy between determined women with the men always also-rans and shadows in comparison. Miss Mapp has always seen herself as the leader of Tilling society but she meets her match with the arrival of Lucia and her close companion the effete Georgie. Mapp is snobbish, offensive, rude, over bearing (but Benson often evokes sympathy for her) while Lucia is shallow, determined and a natural organiser and leader - always looking for an opportunity to assert her natural role (to her at least), but again Benson always just ensures that she her little deceits come close to discovery in order to reing her in. I just love it.
No comments:
Post a Comment