Thoughts on A Woman Of Substance - the new series versus original and book? Spoiler Alert

[PinkTonic]

Setting up a thread to have a decent discussion of the new version compared to the original series and book.

I’m up to episode 5 personally and pretty nonplussed about what I consider to be pointless and gratuitous changes to characters and plot. I’d love to hear other opinions and don’t care what episodes are discussed. I think Brenda Blethyn is all kinds of wrong for Emma although I like the young version. I am immensely irritated that someone thought it was a good idea to completely omit how Emma started her business and life in Leeds whilst wasting time on the sordid details of Adam’s sex life. And no Laura!!

I've just had a flash of another big 80s drama. Return to Eden. Does anyone remember it? It was about a woman whose husband fed her to crocodiles. She survived, built her fortune and then sought revenge.

In the book, he is nicknamed Blackie because of his black hair, which he says shows he is descended from Spanish sailors who arrived on Ireland (shipwrecked, perhaps) during the Armada, @TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams.

Oh yeah used to love that and another Aussie one All the Rivers Run

I'm watching the 1985 version now. My god, the kissing is awful and Liam Neeson has a dreadful Irish accent.

It was definitely of its time!

It may not have aged well (unlike Liam...) but was FABULOUS back then 😍

I'm on ep 2 now and Jenny Seagrove has completely lost her accent and is onto RP. Still awful face eating though! And Joe Lowther is the guy from Day of the Triffids.

It’s a damn sight better than the shite which is currently on.

It really was.

Well I've just finished the episodes and was enjoying the 2 dimensional romp of it all, the dreadful 60-70s costumes (call that a beehive? Behave!) and the mwah ha ha Fairley family evilness. Really felt for the 'character' acting of the dastardly Adam and his sneering, wet and double-crossing sons, though the roles are good prep for the pantomime season.

BUT, I really didn't like the ending. All the way through, there's this over egged emphasis on how she overcomes deceit and cunning, time after time, for her heir apparent to then be a ditzy klutz!

I have found much solace in reading through this thread and am now planning to watch the 1985 version, fully warned about dodgey, disappearing accents and slurpy kissing

Omg I remember Return to Eden, just went down a rabbit hole on YouTube 🤣 such a CLASSIC 80s mini-series, it’s all there for our viewing pleasure! Anyone remember Deceptions? Mistral’s Daughter?

I've never watched the 1985 one, but this new one was really taking a liberty with the books. Whole sections fabricated which didn't need or warrant it, whole sections left out from the book which show her progression anc k would hsvd thought were crucial. They even left out a husband from what I remember of the book. VERY loose adaptation, and I hated the ending. Did Barbara Taylor Bradford sign off on this ending? I just can't imagine she would have, it was awful.

@TeethAreImportant

"Did Barbara Taylor Bradford sign off on this ending?" I shouldn't think so, she died in 2024 😲

She had extensive plastic surgery and fell in love with her dr! Yes I remember it well

It’s not a patch on the book and the 1980’s mini series. Too many characters left out, a name change for Blackie (because of his hair colour) and no 80’s stalwart Barry Bostwick. They also didn’t do a true interpretation of Emma’s character either. Paula’s curly wig was an abomination.

Mistral's Daughter rings a bell.

The time tv series and films take to come to screen, it is possible she signed off on it, especially at the script stage, but the way it ended, it did me me wonder if she would have agreed to that, after all, the implication of the TV series ending is that the Fairleys have won after all. I can't see BTB agreeing to that.

Ive just finished it. I mainly enjoyed it, but when I saw it was an eight parter I thought it would go into a lot more detail than the 80s version. But instead it only covered about a third of the book!

Like PPs have mentioned it missed out her coming to Leeds, meeting the Kallinski family, and her initially having to work in a mill when she moved to Armley, which was all really intriguing and makes you root for Emma. Instead it just looked like she had it all handed to her, rather than the having to graft for everything which was kind of the point of the story.

The David and Emma romance was just a two minute mention where it was quite significant to the plot in the book, that with the attempt rape also explains why she married Joe rather than the ‘I need a husband for business reasons’ angle. Gerald attempting to rape her when she was already married and had a child to Joe just seemed a bit of gratuitous violence.

Likewise Edwina’s naming was also significant in the book as it was a mistake but one that tipped Blackie off who had made Emma pregnant. Without knowing that from the book would make viewers wonder why in earth she’d called her baby after the man who’d abandoned her, and looked so happy about it

The adult Fairleys were all too pantomime baddy as well. In the book all three, especially Olivia have some redeeming features. Emma acknowledges that the sisters were both kind to her in the book. The squire does continue to pay her dad’s wages when he died which she does rage at but for the day would have been generous. He is also a good father (to Edwin at least.) Their main flaws were their entitlement and lack of empathy rather than cruelty.

I didn’t mind about Blackie being renamed although Mac would make more sense if he was Scottish rather than Irish. Or if they changed his surname to McNeill. I don’t think I’ve heard of an Irish person being nicknamed Mac before.

I also didn't mind about Frank having dwarfism as Lenny Rush is a good young actor. I imagine there may have been the occasional English/Indian marriages back with British families who lived in India then but certainly not in the Yorkshire dales.

Missing out Paul was a huge mistake but I assume another series could be on the cards then? I will watch it if it is.

My issue with lots of period dramas which introduce characters of colour which were not in the original books, is that they are usually sanitising the past by rarely acknowledging the racism which would have been extremely common at the time. As somebody with Irish relatives, anti-Irish feeling was most definitely a 'thing' in the UK right up until the 1980s. Signs saying 'No blacks, No Irish, No dogs' were common in Britain until the 60s. The idea that a prominent English, aristocratic family would marry into an Anglo-Indian family and nobody would even have remarked upon that at the time is just ludicrous. Blackie (or Mac as they baffling renamed him for reasons unknown), would have been regularly abused for being Irish at that time. They even left out how Emma met David, via a racist attack because his family was Jewish, which is in the book. It could be an opportunity to show how far we have come, rather than this pretense that the England of the past was a colour blind place. Unfortunately, ignorance and bigotry were common and we should be honest about that.

Yes! It was gripping but the crocodile bit scared me to death at the time.

Yes completely agree. It’s dishonest, lazy and offensive to pretend.

In Downton Abbey they introduced Jack Ross, the Black band leader in a realistic way for the period and Rose’s dalliance with him was entirely in character for her and made sense within the plot. Similarly they were true to the period in the responses to her relationship and marriage to a Jewish boy (and addressed the Russian’s attitude his family history).

Here I think it’s a great pity they dropped the Kallinski storyline completely. They acknowledge the ethnicity of Priya, but I’m not quite sure if we’re supposed to assume that Jim is the child she was pregnant with. As for Paula, her parentage is anyone’s guess.

Jim is Edwin’s grandchild. Otherwise he’d be loads older than Paula

In the book Edwin and his wife had a son I think he was called Roderick or something? He didn’t have any involvement in the story other than being Edwin’s son and Jim’s father.

Yes of course, grandchild. I think the point still stands. In the book Edwin marries the daughter of a British earl.

I absolutely adore it and will be re-wtaching as I got distracted scrolling on my phone around eps 3-5. I am 40 and never saw the original but it feels like the first thing I have seen which is like the Catherine Cooksons of the 90s that I was a bit too young for but knew were special.

I will watch the older version too but with nonknowledge of thia being done prior until I read on here, I love it as somwthing different. Similarsh to A Passionate Woman that I watched a few years ago.

Just on final ep, saw Jo Joyner - hard to believe she wouldnt have been cast as a character through out!

I'm just watching it now and it is a shocker, making me laugh though..Edwin is all lips and teefs 😂 can't even go there with the accents..

Holy jebus just got to the 'kissing' in the cave....eye bleach needed!