Thoughts on The Long Dark Tea-Time...
Nov. 7th, 2008 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylAlthough I was initially doubtful — I wasn't sure all the convolutions were going to work — I've been favourably impressed with the R4 dramatisation of Douglas Adams' The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.
Although it's been a decade or more since I last read the book, I'm pretty sure that the adaptation took serious liberties with the plot and the characters. Thus, there was relatively little of Kate Schechter, more of Dirk, who seemed rather more cheerful than his morose literary progenitor; cameos from Richard McDuff and Sergeant Gilks, neither of whom appear in the book; and far more of the Dracotts than might be expected.
But these weren't weaknesses so much as the necessities required to drive the plot forward.
And most of my favourite moments were preserved. Dirk having his nose broken by a small, television obsessed child; his casual appropriation of someone else's cup of coffee in a restaurant; and a neat-freak doctor who keeps his phone in his desk draw. Although I also felt the painful lack of Kate's alleged car and wasn't entirely sure about Dirk's elderly jaguar — at one point, early on, I'm sure he announced that he didn't have a car but when the time came to crash into Kate, there he was driving along, perfectly placed to make his joke about not needing an indicator because he hardly ever makes right turns.
I'm now determined to re-read the book, just as soon as I find the time, to see if it really is as good as my hazy, decade-old memory seems to think it is.
Although it's been a decade or more since I last read the book, I'm pretty sure that the adaptation took serious liberties with the plot and the characters. Thus, there was relatively little of Kate Schechter, more of Dirk, who seemed rather more cheerful than his morose literary progenitor; cameos from Richard McDuff and Sergeant Gilks, neither of whom appear in the book; and far more of the Dracotts than might be expected.
But these weren't weaknesses so much as the necessities required to drive the plot forward.
And most of my favourite moments were preserved. Dirk having his nose broken by a small, television obsessed child; his casual appropriation of someone else's cup of coffee in a restaurant; and a neat-freak doctor who keeps his phone in his desk draw. Although I also felt the painful lack of Kate's alleged car and wasn't entirely sure about Dirk's elderly jaguar — at one point, early on, I'm sure he announced that he didn't have a car but when the time came to crash into Kate, there he was driving along, perfectly placed to make his joke about not needing an indicator because he hardly ever makes right turns.
I'm now determined to re-read the book, just as soon as I find the time, to see if it really is as good as my hazy, decade-old memory seems to think it is.
