BBC's Poldark adapts to our times

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/mar/08/bbc-poldark-adaptation-eleanor-tomlinson-aidan-turner

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Following in the footsteps of the hit 70s version of Poldark is no easy feat. Around 15 million viewers regularly tuned in to the BBC 40 years ago to see the adventures of the brooding 18th-century Cornishman Ross Poldark and his servant Demelza and it made stars of the leads, Robin Ellis and Angharad Rees.

Eleanor Tomlinson, who plays ­Demelza in the forthcoming new ­adaptation of Winston Graham’s books, has said she is “nervous” about the reaction, and The Hobbit actor, Aidan Turner, who plays the eponymous hero, was told by his mother he had “better not mess this up”.

But its writer Debbie Horsfield is more sanguine. “I didn’t feel under any ­pressure about the 1970s adaptation. If I was under any pressure it was to do ­justice to the books.” Her approach was to concentrate on Graham’s novels, helped by the fact she had never seen the earlier drama.

Related: Poldark: behind the scenes on the BBC drama - in pictures

“I felt no pressure at all because my source is the book not any previous ­versions, the same as if I’d done an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. The source is what I felt I had to do a good job on. I didn’t think at all about any previous adaptation.” It was only after she had written five episodes of her Poldark that she allowed herself to look at the other one.

“It was really interesting because I could see why everybody had loved it in the 1970s. There are some fantastic ­performances. But I was also interested in some of the choices that had been made because they had diverged from the book quite considerably in some areas.”

Andrew Davies – whose 1995 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth is still seen as a seminal version – says: “Every adaptation has to be one that reflects the time in which it was written, as the book itself does.” While he is “very proud” of his Pride and Prejudice, he thinks that even that will “eventually start looking old-fashioned”. He created a new take on Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago for ITV in 2002 and admitted it was hard to get David Lean’s film out of his head. While he says “it’s really difficult” to put away images from previous ­versions, “you just have to hope that the book offers you the chance of a different interpretation”.

Filming has started on Davies’s latest project – an adaptation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, which was dramatised by the BBC in 1972.

Davies thinks the way to follow a previous successful version is “just try and have a fresh reading of the book, especially with classics. Every time we read them with a gap of years we read them as a slightly different person and in context … to our own times”.

That perhaps helps explain why Poldark producer Mammoth wanted Horsfield – who is renowned for her contemporary dramas such as The Riff Raff Element and Sex, Chips & Rock ‘n’ Roll – on board. Although the 70s series looms large, Horsfield says she was more interested in the fact that ­Graham’s novels are, “a slice of history, so I wanted to make sure I did justice to that really”.

Her storytelling skills and her English literature degree helped her, plus the fact that, although Poldark is set more than 200 years ago, “human beings don’t really change … the needs are the same – love, companionship etc”.

She liaised with a historian and the production team went to great lengths to ensure historical accuracy. From the rotten state of some characters’ teeth to faithfully recreating an 18th-century high street, the attention to detail was “amazing”, says Horsfield.

She acknowledges that nowadays with costume dramas such as Downton Abbey or Wolf Hall: “There’s more ­scrutiny. The internet has enabled ­anyone to look up what the reality was then.”

The new Poldark features Turner in a naked swimming scene, dubbed his Mr Darcy moment after the Pride and Prejudice lake scene where Firth appears in a wet shirt and breeches.

Davies reckons that while the 1970s Poldark was more about Demelza and Rees, the new one will be more about Ross and Turner: “She seemed to be the one that everyone talked about rather than Poldark but this time it seems to be about Ross Poldark.”

Eight episodes have been made, based on the first two Graham ­novels, and the BBC hopes to make more. Horsfield tentatively says she is writing some more in preparation should it be recommissioned but does not want to jinx things.

She knows that it will not please ­everybody: “It’s a much-loved book. Fans of the book will have very ­specific images in their head of the key ­characters and nothing will match up to those. And we accept that.

“And there will be people who’ve never read the books or heard of the 1970s adaptation so they’re coming to it completely fresh. Even if I write ­something original, it’s never going to please everybody.”