The Times has announced a list of outstanding TV dramas scheduled to air in the New Year. Among them is the adaptation of Waugh’s first novel Decline and Fall to be broadcast in the Spring. (See earlier posts.) Here’s The Times’ description:
It seems incredible, but this three-part comedy satire represents the television debut for Evelyn Waugh’s comic masterpiece. Jack Whitehall takes the lead as the hapless Paul Pennyfeather, who, after a mishap at Oxford involving the Bollinger Club (sound familiar?), ends up having to teach at an obscure public school in Wales. David Suchet is the headmaster of Llanabba School, while Eva Longoria will play the exotic Mrs Margot Beste-Chetwynde. James Wood, who wrote Rev, is the adapter, so expect something very lovely.
The Times’ article on the internet is headed by a photograph from the film. Other adaptations from novels include SS-GB by Len Deighton on BBC One in February and, later in the year, a four-part animated dramatization of Watership Down co-produced by BBC and Netflix and a 10-part dramatization of stories of Philip K. Dick on Channel 4 to be entitled Electric Dreams.
