Top 5

Novels crying out for a lavish TV adaptation

Mike Pollitt | Tuesday 23 November, 2010 12:01

Snipe was very taken with the first part of Channel 4’s Any Human Heart. It has all the hallmarks of a first rate TV miniseries: period detail, modern resonance, beautiful people in tragic parabolas across the decades…cracking stuff. So come on television, don’t stop now. Here are five more novels which deserve similarly sumptuous treatment.

The Untouchable by John Banville
The tale of the Cambridge spies has been oft-told on screen: The BBC did a version in the early noughties, and Kim Philby cropped up in the much underrated US show The Company. But such adaptations have tended to focus tightly on the years surrounding the spies’ unmasking. Banville’s book is the story of a whole life, and is much richer as a result. There’s also the added advantage that most of the characters are well spoken upper class types who like nothing better than quaffing champagne at 10 in the morning while flirting sardonically with their best friend’s wife. In other words, exactly the sort of drama we Brits are best at.

The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
This book divides opinion. Snipe is a big Murdoch fan, but even leaving aside literary merit it’s got all the requirements for a great Sunday night in: rugged coastal scenery, character-defining flashbacks, slow-burning obsession unfolding over three beautifully shot episodes…we can see it all.

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
Yes, there’s all the Catholic stuff to wade through. But that could be brought off nicely with epic shots of sunlight through church windows and dark sleepless nights. This has things that TV loves – namely adultery, sex, war and raging jealousy. Also Greene is a bit unfashionable these days and he could do with a reinvention.

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
This is set partly in a brooding gothic mental asylum and partly on the pre-war Irish coast. It’s a cinematographer’s wet dream. Make it.

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
More opportunity for sumptuous inter-war period detail. A stately home, a social climber, posh people shagging in opulent surroundings. Two parts Downton Abbey, one part Midsomer Murders. Who wouldn’t watch that?

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