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pilferingapples:

shellcollector:

My predictions for the Andrew Davies Les Mis, if it ever happens:

  1. The politics will end up kind of emaciated. The revolution stuff will feel like a subplot rather than the arc that ties the story together. Davies just doesn’t do the socialist aesthetic. He does not hear the people sing. 
  2. The Fantine section will get a lot of time, and will be suitably horrible. It will probably be the best part of the adaptation.
  3. We might get to see some of the Amis’ ladyfriends. This based on the fact that Davies likes giving women agency and sexing things up. My guess would be, at least, speaking roles for Musichetta and Bahorel’s laughing mistress. Maybe we’ll get to see Irma Boissy call R ‘impossible’.
  4. All the Dickensian stuff where everyone keeps meeting each other through bizarre coincidence will be ramped up to eleven
  5. It’ll be funnier than most Les Mis adaptations
  6. My mum will call me up repeatedly to discuss it with me
  7. It will feel strangely unsatisfying, mostly because of point 1: the costumes will be lovely and the acting will be good and it’ll still miss the point of the whole thing in a way that the scrappiest secondary-school production of the musical does not.
  8. I will spend a really long time explaining point 7 to numerous people who Do Not Care and will be quietly exasperated but I won’t notice because it will seem really important to raise! awareness!.

ARGH. Point (1) is where almost all my complaints about adaptations really kick in, because treating the revolution(or Fantine’s story,or  the Thenardier’s, or the Marius/Cosette romance, or the GAMINS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD) as sub-plot totally loses what makes the book not just good but amazing to me, the way that all these different stories are intrinsically tied together and leading to the same place, all the little things inherently part of the grand conflict and the grand conflict inherently composed of the little things. 

Trying to separate the story into sub-plots is just…just no. It steals all that wonderful drive from the story. Spotlighting individual characters and incidents is obviously a super fertile ground for transformative works, but for a representation of Les Mis itself, it’s a Big No for me, and yet it’s so incredibly common. 

I mean,I’m gonna watch this if it happens, and if Fantine gets some decent focus that will be wonderful. And maybe it will be really good! I WILL HOPE.