A poor relation

Press, 12 November 1985, Page 15

A poor relation

Review

Ken Strongman

With a rather abrupt change of style and era, the Sunday evening culture spot has been usurped for the next six weeks by Jane Austen. From post-war Manchester to eighteenth century Mansfield Park is a big jump. From near slums, we are into another series dominated by a grand house.

“Mansfield Park” is the stuff of manners, the niceties and delicacies of life. Rights carry duties and obligations, and courtesy is all. At first blush, everthing seemed to be just right, in the usual Beeb way — setting clothes, colours, the lot. But, at second blush, it became clear that the television adaptation simply does not have the subtlety of the original. The problem faced by those who live in and around Mansfield Park is not one commonly experienced in today’s world. How does one bring up the young cousin, Fanny Price, in the grand house, in the grand way, but without her becoming quite as accomplished as the children of the house, or as privileged? Ten minutes worrying about this and matters of the wage round and GST become almost beguiling, to say nothing of deciding about what shirt to put on in the morning. In the other words, and not to be seduced by 200-year-old language into a plethora of words, this series might be wellish done

and Miss Austen might be brilliant, but the first episode did become boring at times. Well, most of the time actually. There, it is said. Mistake me not, it was not totally boring, merely in large proportion. One question that will be burning into the nation’s consclouness is whether, in those days, they all spoke in sentences or was it Jane Austen that made them seem so? If they did, then how did they manage it? Consider “Your profligacy renders this impossible.” “Each day I grow a little bolder.” “I cannot conceive how you were so mistook.” And a father to his son, thus: “Let us end an interview which has been displeasing to us both.”

However, it was rather nice how children would then call their father “Sir.” Even Sir Thomas’s wife called him “Sir Thomas.” They knew their proper place, by gum. When said Sir Thomas went off to visit his estates in Antigua, his simpering wife was nearly distraught about who would carve at table.

Apart from all this, what

of the production itself? Well, again, it has to be said, by the end of the first episode it seemed not to be up to the Beeb’s usual standard. It was disjointed and rushed, a scurry from one scene to the next. In the end, the main problem was that Fanny could take no exercise because there was no horse. ‘Dut cousin, you must not sacrifice a horse on my account” He did though. The current equivalent would probably be the old two-stroke.

The only people who will enjoy this adaption of “Mansfield Park” are those who already enjoy Jane Austen, but since the original is so excellent, they will be critical. In itself, this production will not prompt other people to read the book. What for example, would the average viewers, relaxing on Sunday evening, make of this? “How would you spend your time?” “I would spend half of it in town and half of it in rusticity.” Could this be the car-breaker’s yard just outside Taupo? Somehow, this series is summed up by the fact that a fair proportion of its actresses themselves have double-barrelled names. Perhaps it is only such as these that can work their mouths round those beautifully contrived sentences. Finally though, there will be those who, with a little inversion of thought, might just characterise this series as “Mansfield Krap.”