Mapp and Lucia

[Scripps2]

Posted: 10/12/14 at 7:02am

Haven't read the books or seen the original TV adaptation but know there are some fans around here.

It is apparently being remade with Miranda Richardson and Anna Chancellor (Duckface in Four Weddings, Amanda in the recent, near-perfect screening of Private Lives and wasted shagging Jimmy in Downton).



Updated On: 10/12/14 at 07:02 AM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 10/12/14 at 9:05am

You, of all people, haven't read the books?!?

You, of all people, are in for a treat!

[Gothampc]

Posted: 10/12/14 at 9:45am

The books are a lot of fun. I think the original version was quite good. I can't imagine that this cast could do any better than Geraldine McEwan and Prunella Scales who seemed born to play these roles.

I question whether Anna Chancellor can pull off Lucia. Lucia is just a smarter Hyacinth Bucket. I'm afraid Chancellor may play it straight and completely miss the tone of the comedy.

I'll be interested to see Steve Pemberton as Georgie. I've been watching him on Benedorm.

Surprisingly, these stories have never really taken hold in the US.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 10/12/14 at 2:14pm

They've always had a gay following. You know, among gay people.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 10/12/14 at 2:22pm

Anyone read the three new Mapp and Lucia stories that have come out over the last couple of years?

I've been meaning to get around to them. They received mixed reviews, I believe.

[darquegk]

Posted: 10/12/14 at 10:40pm

Interestingly enough (if you're a literature buff), the author of these light comedies of manners, E. F. Benson, is considered one of the three essential writers of Victorian-Edwardian horror literature, with M. R. James and Henry James.

Unlike them, his supernatural fiction focused on the uncanny and supernatural mostly for its own sake- crucial to both unrelated Jameses was the sense of sublimated "queer panic" made significantly more explicit in Oscar Wilde's horror novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray."

[VeraCharles3]

Posted: 10/13/14 at 3:43am

Scripps2 - Thanks for the reminder. I have not read the books either but have seen snippets of the original show but couldn't get into it at all.

This surprised me as I love a lot of things from this era. Have you read Diary of a Provincial Lady? It is one of my favourite books and in the same vein as Mapp and Lucia.

I also love Hinge and Brackett lol - I know many will see no similarities but I do.