All three episodes of the BBC TV adaptation of Waugh’s novel Decline and Fall are currently posted on YouTube. They may be watched on your computer without a UK internet connection. Here are the links:
For those who do have UK internet connections, the entire series remains available on BBC iPlayer until 28 April.
The Spectator in a blog column by Douglas Murray has added to its earlier praise for the BBC’s adaptation of Waugh’s Decline and Fall. This follows Friday’s transmission of the final episode of the series and focuses on that episode. But it opens more broadly with he declaration that the series as a whole was “a triumph.”:
…I had always assumed that this earliest of Evelyn Waughâs novels was un-filmable. The plot is slightly sketchier, the characters slightly more limited than in Waughâs later novels. Which isnât to take away from the fact that it remains one of the funniest novels ever written. And now here, amazingly, was a near-perfect adaptation. … The cast was uniformly superb [and]Â by the final episode …Â seemed to be moving to some heavenly (if also partly grotesque) harmony. … Of course if you love a novel, it is hard not to watch any adaptation partly by looking for the mistakes.
Murray goes on to consider the case of the presentation of Prendergast’s death. In the novel Waugh put this gruesome topic into the comic context of having Philbrick report it to Paul Pennyfeather in chapel by fitting it into the words of the hymn O God Our Help in Ages Past. That made it funny on the page but may not have worked so well on the screen. So the BBC adaptation came up with a more direct presentation of Prendy’s demise. This ended with a macabre sight gag (not mentioned by Murray) which was one of the funniest moments in the series. And they saved a bit of the chapel scene beloved by Murray when Pennyfeather reports to Philbrick the escape of Grimes from Egdon Heath Prison to the tune of the same hymn. That itself was not as funny as Waugh’s version of the hymn but was reasonable compensation for the modification.
In his conclusion, Murray seemed to agree:
Anyhow â they bottled giving Waughâs version exactly, as they bottled a tiny number of other things. But it worked fantastically nonetheless, and I will more than forgive them for it. If the BBC can gather a cast of this calibre and make an adaptation able to please even the most pedantic fans, then the BBC is clearly doing something right. Iâm tempted to say âfor this be all thy sins forgiven.â Which might be overdoing it, but this tour-de-force will certainly put any such sins to the back of the mind for a time.
In a departure from its usual practice, the TLS has added a TV column to its current issue. This contains Robert Douglas-Fairhurst’s review, entitled “Vile Buddies,” of the BBC adaptation of Waugh’s novel Decline and Fall which concluded with last night’s Episode 3. Douglas-Fairhurst’s day job is Professor of English Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford, so this TLS column may be a departure from his usual reviewing assignment as well.
The review begins with an explanation of how Waugh, rather than meekly accepting his life as an accidental school master, “instead decided to rewrite it.” This produced one of the funniest books in the English language with a “rogue’s gallery of grotesques.” But according to Douglas-Fairhurst:
…the most important character doesn’t have any identifying features or even a name. He is Waugh’s narrator. In an essay he published in 1929, Waugh praised Ronald Firbank’s fiction for its switches between “the wildest extravagance” and “the most austere economy”, and the same is true of his own narrative voice, which lets him describe appalling events without ever being touched by them. It is the artstic equivalent of the comedian’s poker face.
While Douglas-Fairhurst does not suggest that this narrator could have been brought wholesale into the TV adaptation, he does find that
as scripted by the Rev creator James Wood, this is a curiously gloomy affair. Most of the time it sticks closely to its source, and whole lines are lifted straight from the page…Where it moves away from Waugh  is its unwillingness to trust the exquisite flatness of his narrative voice.
Small details are dropped and larger elements are spelled out–for example, the script does not leave it to our imaginations that Capt Grimes gets “in the soup”, as Waugh discretely puts it, for being a pederast, but rather has him caught in flagrante with an adult chauffeur in the toolshed. And rather than having young Tangent “grazed” by a bullet, as written by Waugh, the TV version has him shot through the leg, with blood spurting out of the wound. These are elements of an “adaptation that is far too busy explaining Waugh’s novel to listen to it properly.”Â
It is not clear whether Prof Douglas-Fairhurst had seen Episodes 2 and 3 when he wrote his review, as all his examples are from Episode 1. The adaptors faced a much larger challenge putting those later and significantly darker bits of the novel on the screen while still bearing in mind Waugh’s admonition that the novel “throughout…IS MEANT TO BE FUNNY”. In those episodes, the tinkering with the novel’s details worked successfully in preserving Waugh’s intention that the story overall should be “FUNNY.” Moreover, as these things go, the adaptation comes out fairly close to the novel: the original story suffers relatively few  changes in its transference to the screen. No major characters are sacrificed and the plot, such as it is, comes through relatively unscathed. And right to the end, IT IS FUNNY.
Thanks to reader Peggy Troupin for providing a copy of the review.
Today’s Times notes the issuance of the UK paperback edition of a WWII history which has Wavian overtones. This is The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: Churchillâs Mavericks Who Plotted Hitlerâs Defeat by Giles Milton. In his brief notice, Lawrence James explains:
The Castrator, a small explosive device placed under a lavatory seat, which detonated when raised, was one of the least known British weapons of the Second World War. A similar booby trap was contrived by Brigadier Ben Ritchie-Hook to destroy Apthorpeâs âthunderboxâ in Evelyn Waughâs Sword of Honour trilogy. A bit caddish perhaps but, as Ritchie-Hook was forever insisting, war was about âbiffingâ the enemy and the latrine was as good a place as any to do it. Ritchie-Hookâs pugnacious philosophy and devilishly inventive spirit runs through Giles Miltonâs wonderful book about the mavericks who were employed by the government to devise original ways of killing Germans. Milton gives a fascinating and lively account of their activities and contraptions and of how Churchill overrode objections made by what one inventor called Whitehallâs âabominable no-menâ.
Alas, neither Ritchie-Hook nor Apthorpe (nor Waugh for that matter) are mentioned in the book’s index.
The Times has provided a detailed preview of tonight’s final episode of the BBC’s adaptation of Waugh’s novel Decline and Fall. Not surprisingly, given the darker contents of the latter part of the novel, the preview by James Jackson finds less comedy in this episode as compared to the earlier ones:
The first 20 minutes of the final part of this Evelyn Waugh adaptation are tremendous fun. On the eve of his wedding … Paul Pennyfeather (Jack Whitehall) is blithely unaware that heâs about to be plunged into his biggest crisis yet. At his bachelor lunch the hapless dupe is stuck over what to choose from the menu … Yet thatâs the least of his worries when, right there, he is arrested for trafficking prostitutes. Seven years of hard labour at Egdon Heath prison awaits … Itâs around here that things enter more bleak and maudlin territory, offering the sharpest reminders of the novelâs sadistic streak. If thereâs some amusing liberty with the text when Pennyfeatherâs escape plan is debunked by his fellow don-turned-con Captain Grimes â a contemporary wink referencing The Shawshank Redemption â things become downright grisly with the fate of the toupee-wearing Mr Prendergast. It makes for, tonally, a rather uneven conclusion to what has been an impeccably styled adaptation, graced by some top-notch performances â not least from Whitehall, playing it so unexpectedly straight.
Radio Times also offers a brief preview that is consistent with its earlier less positive assessment of the series:
…As this fairly lifeless adaptation of Evelyn Waughâs brilliant comic novel comes to a close, Paul (Jack Whitehall) falls head-first into a massive mess. Heâs a naif, bribing bad men without thought, and he gets into trouble. … Brace yourselves for a shocking bit of gore, and the line âI love you, but Iâm worried that youâre sleeping with the Home Secretaryâ.
The Catholic Herald has also published what looks as if it might be a comprehensive review of the entire series, but to read it requires a subscription. The series concludes tonight on BBC One at 9pm.
The Daily Telegraph has meanwhile turned its attention to another adaptation of Waugh’s novels. This is in an article which considers films with a Venetian setting, where it names the usually dismissed 2008 theatrical film production of Brideshead Revisited as one of the top ten in this category. This seems to be more for the extensive filming of locations in Venice, much of which involved material extraneous to the novel, rather than for the overall quality of the film itself:
This … adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel doesn’t quite live up to the reputation of the classic TV series, but features some handsome Venetian landmarks, including the Palazzo Contarini Polignac, Campo Castelforte, the Church of San Francesco della Vigna … and Punta Sabbioni beach.
The current issue of The Tablet has a feature length article about Frederick Copleston, SJ entitled “The Cleverest Jesuit”. This is by John Haldane, Professor of Philosophy at Baylor University and University of St Andrews. He begins by describing the context of the English Jesuit community at the time Copleston entered it:
Fr rothschild sj is the first character to appear in Evelyn Waughâs 1930 novel Vile Bodies. He is an ambiguous figure, secretive and unctuous but learned and clever. Evidently Waugh was invoking a prejudicial stereotype familiar to his non-Catholic readers. Within a few months, however, he began to discover the Jesuits at first hand, beginning with Fr Martin DâArcy SJ who provided instruction and received him into the Church before the year was out. Thereafter such phrases as âa very clever Jesuitâ appear in Waughâs letters and diaries without a sense of irony, often recommending DâArcy or Philip Caraman SJ to some would-be convert. … âCaramanseraiâ was coined to refer to Caramanâs company of converts, just as âobjets DâArcyâ had been given to the sacred artworks acquired by DâArcy for the adornment of Campion Hall, Oxford, of which he was Master from 1933 to 1945. Very quickly the image of the English Jesuits changed from one of agents of intrigue to participants in, and contributors to, an intellectual, cultural and spiritual renaissance centred on Campion Hall, and Farm Street Church, London.Â
Most of these leading Jesuits were educated at Stonyhurst, whereras Copleston went to Marlborough, where he converted to Roman Catholicism in his final year, causing his discrete dismissal. This did not interfere, however, with his acceptance at Oxford:
As he later wrote, his time there (1925-29) âbore little resemblance to the life depicted by Evelyn Waughâ. The following year he entered the Jesuits and in 1937 was ordained a priest at Heythrop College (then in Oxfordshire), to which he soon returned to teach philosophy. Â … In 1967, the idea began to be discussed of transferring Heythrop College from Oxford into a secular university. Bristol, Nottingham, Oxford and Manchester were considered but London was judged to be most apt, in part because being a federal university Heythrop could preserve its identity as a college within it.
Copleston remained at Heythrop College until the mid 1970s and ultimately was named professor of philosophy by the University of London but he resigned shortly thereafter. Recently, the Jesuits have decided to end the relationship of Heythrop College with the University, based on concerns such as those previously expressed by Copleston with its ability to flourish independently from the political and economic goals of a larger secular institution. Prof Haldane’s article concludes:
It is no accident that the age that produced Martindale, DâArcy, Caraman and Copleston also produced Chesterton, Waugh, Greene and Spark. The lesson of history, however, is that while change overtakes us, equally nothing deep is ever lost. The task for laity and Religious, therefore, is not to take comfort in nostalgic reverie or lament a lost age, but to re-engage, be it under different circumstances, in the intellectual and cultural work to which those earlier figures were committed and to which they contributed so much ad maiorem dei gloriam.
The final episode of the BBC’s adaptation of Waugh’s Decline and Fall will broadcast tomorrow, Friday, 14 April on BBC One at 9pm. The adaptation has been widely reviewed and mostly praised. Rosamund Urwin gives her assessment in the Evening Standard:
The wit, the worldly disdain and the whiff of misogyny that typify an Evelyn Waugh novel are present and correct in BBC1âs Decline and Fall. The only flaw in the three-part series, which finishes tomorrow night, is that half the cast donât have enough faith in the script not to overact.Â
Urwin praises Jack Whitehall’s performance as “proving his range as an actor” while David Suchet as Dr Fagan and Anatole Taubman as Otto Silenus are “works of comic genius.”Â
But other cast members serve up a triple helping of ham, with more hamminess for pudding. If only the director had told them that satirical doesnât have to mean silly.Â
This week’s TLS also offers what appears to be a review of the production. This is entitled “Vile Buddies” and is written by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Professor of Eng Lit at Magdalen College, Oxford. The TLS has placed the online version of the article behind its paywall, and we shall have to await the arrival of the printed version from those distant shores before we have his assessment.Â
A podcast panel made up of three Midwestern blokes and called “InfiniteGestation” has in its latest episode (#047) discussed Evelyn Waugh’s 1938 novel Scoop. This is the first book by Waugh to be taken up by their program, which seems to come from somewhere in Southern Indiana (Terre Haute is mentioned several times). It is not encouraging that they all pronounce Waugh consistently as Woe, but this becomes less annoying after the author of Lucky Jim is referred to as Kingsley Amiss. The discussion extends for 50 minutes and, once they get past the plot, they begin to take up style and structure which is more worthwhile. For example, one of them makes an extended comparison of Scoop and Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana which is worth listening to. The panel consists of Patrick Feild, Samuel Zurcher, and Grant Karazsia.Â
Writing in the Irish Times, author Mark Felton describes one of the British officers who appear in his new book as the model for Evelyn Waugh’s eccentric Ben Ritchie-Hook in his Sword of Honour trilogy. This is Brigadier-General Adrian Carton de Wiart, VC– half-Irish, half-Belgian veteran of the Boer War as well as World Wars I and II. Felton’s book is entitled Castle of the Eagles: Escape from Mussoliniâs Colditz and deals with the escapes organized from an Italian POW camp where Carton de Wiart and several other generals were imprisoned. Carton de Wiart was captured after a plane crash in 1941 en route to Yugoslavia. The excerpt from the book describes how Carton de Wiart and several other high ranking British officers organized an elaborate escape from the prison:
Working together, the generals completed their massive tunnel excavation in March 1943. Six, in three teams of two, escaped later that month. Four risked the Italian railways, while De Wiart and [Lieutenant-General Sir Richard] OâConnor walked, sleeping rough each night and relying on the kindness of strangers in a bid for Switzerland. They struggled on through rain and cold, hunted by the Italian army and police, short of food but never of guts. OâConnor, a small wiry 55-year-old, with silver hair and a white moustache helping along the 6ft 2in De Wiart, 63 years old, with a black eye patch and missing left hand that had earned him the nickname âLong John Silverâ from the castleâs young orderlies, both incongruously dressed as Italian peasants. Not for them, or the other esteemed escapers, a comfortable chair beside a roaring fire and a cup of cocoa, instead this band of eccentrics in their twilight years proved to be some of the most determined and imaginative escapers of the second World War.
It was Waugh’s biographer Christopher Sykes who identified Carton de Wiart as a contributor to Ritchie-Hook’s character, along with Major-General Orde Wingate and Waugh’s first Brigade Commander, Brigadier St Clair Morford. He supports his conclusion by noting that Waugh knew Carton de Wiart “slightly but enough, as a fellow member of White’s Club” (Sykes, Penguin, 1977, pp. 555-56).
BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4 have marked the anniversary of Evelyn Waugh’s death, which occurred on 10 April 1966, with the posting of a 1979 Radio 3 interview of Graham Greene. Greene explained that the two authors’ deaths that had most moved him were those of Joseph Conrad and Evelyn Waugh.Â
