Dorothy Sayers' Whimsey novels - do you know the (1980s) TV adaptations?

Ian Carmichael did most of the audiobooks and did an awesome job, IMO.

Not Five Red Herrings though, which is the only one to give Parker a Barrow-in-Furness accent.

Yes, I agree, Jeanne - in the book there's a real sense of the college as a community of people whose work is important to them and who just happen to be women. You get a sense of the strain they're under with the Poltergeist experience, but it's also very clear that their relationships are good when the college isn't being assaulted- there's no suggestion of back-biting or bitchiness, and I suspect the director couldn't imagine a whole group of women who didn't behave like that.

I love EP and HW as Peter and Harriet, but I think Strong Poison and Have His Carcase are much better than Gaudy Night (which is a great shame as I utterly love Gaudy Night, the book - I read it first when I was 12 and it's probably not too much to say that it changed my life).

It's not just that they ruined the ending, it's that Peter expresses some distinctly misogynist views that simply aren't attributed to him in the book (though they are there, expressed by other people). It's a particular shame because one of the reasons I love the book so much is Harriet's gradual realisation that marriage to Peter doesn't have to mean the end of independence and equality - the bit where he writes to her essentially saying that he trusts her judgement and wouldn't want her to be turned back from doing the right thing just because it's disagreeable.

Have His Carcase and Strong Poison are much more like the books!

Harriet Walter is brilliant! I saw her as Henry IV in the recent all-woman adaptation and she is as good as ever.

Jeanne - that's fantastic! If someone proposed to me in the right place (it's near the Sheldonian, isn't it?) with 'placetne magistra' I would accept immediately. Even if on sober reflection I didn't like him that much.

thanks artus will have a look for them!

JeanneDeMontbaston

I can't think who could top EP and HW nowadays so maybe it would be better for them not to re-do them!

I love Gaudy Night and having worked at an Oxford College I can confirm that the High Table conversations are the same now as they were then! It really made me smile the first time I heard the discussion as I'd just been re-reading it 'the students aren't like they were in our day'... There is so much of Oxford in that one and it is so accurate that you can trace their footsteps.

Would be good to see the Rory Alleyn books as a series. I've been reading them over the last year and have just finished Scales of Justice. Who would play Rory, Fox and Troy though?

We have got them all and watch them every few years. Ian Carmichael was good, but too old. The first Bunter was by far the best. Edward Petherbridge was excellent, but Harriet Walter was wooden and all wrong imo.The only film that I think she is any good in is Louis Malle's Milou en Mai.

That was to JdM, btw.

Agoodbook -the Roderick Alleyn books have been filmed, some of them anyway. Patrick Malahide is Alleyn and Belinda Lang is Troy. They ar ebeing repeated on some channel or other at the moment. Malahide is not my idea of Alleyn but he makes the character quite likeable.

I very much like the Petherbridge/Walters adaptations and think the casting is pretty spot on. What I'd like to see is a really good Albert Campion, not Peter Davidson.

Exactly!

Charles Parker, HolyTerror. I always found him a bit disappointing but the romance-across-class-boundaries is well done.

I love the books and really enjoyed the EP/HW Strong Poison, but haven't watched the other ones in case they were wrong. I still don't think I can face Gaudy Night (especially if they've changed the ending - how dare they??) but will give Have His Carcase a go. The book is not one of my favourites (too much cryptography and bar Wimsey and Harriet the characters aren't very interesting) so not too much to lose.

I thnk he's about 5'9". There's occasional reference to his sensitivity about his lack of height.

How tall is Peter? I agree BC hasn't the nose, but who actually manages (or has ever managed, for that matter?) DLS's 'difficult to pull off' combination of parrot-profiled, fair, fop-about-town and steely, cerebral, sporty, devastatingly attractive ladykiller?

Actually, I hate Peter Wimsey. My love is given to Harriet, Bunter, the Dowager Duchess, and Lady Mary's policeman (whose name escapes me, but who is played by Rupert Graves in Lestrade mode in my head).

Oh I love those books , and definitely worth a re run .
I even read the one not by Dorothy Sayers- was it called Thrones and Dominations or something like that :)
I also love Rory Alleyn in the Ngaio Marsh books, but I don't think they have ever been done?