Wednesday night's TV (17/5/2006)

Better attempt a proper crit before spending the next three months devoting the workings of my intellect to Big Brother 7. Last night saw the BBC produce something good for a change. The Line of Beauty, based on Alan Hollinghurst's Booker Prize-winning novel, was well adapted, well cast, well produced and well realised. The first part caught the hope, expectation and self-doubt of Nick Guest, a young researcher straight out of Cambridge and out of his social depth in the Notting Hill household of his university friend, Toby Fedder. Entering the upper-class, Thatcherite, insidiously racist world of Gerald Fedder jars with Nick's simultaneous sexual awakening and discovery of his predilection for working-class, black men, stimulated by the figure of Leo Charles. This is my only criticism of the drama, and one which can be laid at the feet of Hollinghurst himself, who, for whatever reason, isn't good at nailing the vernacular of the women, lower-class men and ethnic minorities he usually sexualises in his novels. Something about Leo's phraseology doesn't ring true, despite Don Gilet's excellent portrayal of the character. But this production has admirably picked up on something from the book, Nick's tenuous position within the outwardly hospitable Fedder family. "There's worm in the frame", Nick says of an antique he finds in Leo's friend's shop, unaware that he is the worm, and about to open a can of them over the concluding two parts. The novel's good, and the adaptation is exceptional. Andrew Davies has pulled out all the unsettling gems of dialogue, structured the narrative so it's evenly measured and not laden with exposition, and brilliantly captured the sense of foreboding underlying the ostensibly cordial relationship between Guest and the Fedders. The Line of Beauty works well as a drama; the agency of the performers freeing them from the limitations of the text, and the ability to mark the meaningful looks exchanged between characters saving a whole lot of unnecessary conversation - the direction, too, was superb. Critics have said that the adaptation fails to convey the richness and detail of the novel, but this is complete rubbish. Not only is it impossible to transfer everything from a literary text during its dramatisation, but it would also be incredibly boring if you did. I thought it was rich enough, and, based on the opener last night, have faith that the distinctiveness of the 80s cultural milieu in which this story takes place will become clearer over the next couple of weeks. Plus The Line of Beauty is rammed full of graphic gay sex. Quality!