A Christmas Carol

[Brandyboy]

I`ve just watched the BBC`s adaptation of A Christmas Carol and I enjoyed it immensely .. probably a few too many effs and bit too much poetic license, but I enjoyed it.

Not sure if portraying Mary Cratchit as a half caste worked very well, but I suspect it was the BBC being PC, but then Dickens didn`t specify her race.

It was all a bit like having one of your favourites songs performed by another artiste, but in a completely different style ... But it worked for me.

[Sheff_Blade]

Yes, it was very good though I haven't seen the end yet so don't spoil it for me(!). My only reservations were that it was a little too PC. Would someone who f's and blind's really say Christmas was humbug? Did the dark pasts of Scrooge and Marley have to include such criminal negligence of health and safety? The whole point of the Dickens' version was that Scrooge had the potential, even at his meanest, to be a likeable character. This version painted Scrooge and Marley so black, effectively they were guilty of wholesale murder, that it was difficult to empathise.

[Brandyboy]

No I won`t spoil it for you suffice to say that it does adhere the whole ethos behind Dicken`s Christmas message ... for which I was pleased.

And the BBC did say that it was based on his novel .. so that could mean a variety of things.

[Francisco]

..It is a shedload of license money spent on a crude, dark, sensationalistic attempt to present a modernistic improvement of a work of genius.
Piss ,Shit, Fuck...it was a BBC series produced to appeal to the baser instincts of viewers, the very same who must then pronounce it cool, lest others should think them unsophisticated,prim, even, ..

"what?" they parrot..." Nowt wrong with a bit of swearing, shagging employees wives for money, peeing on graves..."
" but where's the nudity?..not enough blood..."

Only fools think they can improve on Dickens....none have succeeded yet...but lacking that genius themselves...many have had to try...this is just another one destined never to be heard of after just one showing!!
Fools indeed ...

[Brandyboy]

Francisco my interllectual friend.

An adaptation is never an improvement ... and it just that ...an adaptation.
But having studied Charles Dickens for many years I think he would have approved.

The message behind Charles Dickens's ' A Christmas Carol ' is very simplistic and the sentiments that he portrays in that message are universal worldwide.
I've read Samuel Pepys`s diary many times and profanity was common in the 17th century so was shagging your employees wife.

[Andy F]

Sounds like another BBC 'box ticking' exercise. Was there a wheelchair in there somewhere I wonder? Someone with a suspicious shortage of limbs perhaps?

Not trying to be nasty or anything, just getting a bit pissed off with BBC PC.


Maybe I'm just of the wrong generation Glad I didn't watch it.

[Francisco]

I've read Samuel Pepys`s diary many times and profanity was common in the 19th century so was shagging your employees wives.

Well, jamesB, if its authenticity you are applauding, then as well as the urination fornication and profanities the BBC utilised to tittilate and shock, why were they too PC to use the words blackamoor and negro and halfbreed in their production.
These words were common in Pepy's 17th century, and Dicken's 19th century....but too offensive now for the BBC?

...for the luvvies...a push too far, maybe...?

[terry8]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/ala ... mic-actor/

Alastair Sim:- best ever scrooge and still nobody to touch him.

[Brandyboy]

Yes, my favourites version also .. and I liked him too in the St Trinians films..
But that`s another story.