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

[JeanneDeMontbaston]

I wasn't sure where to put this thread, but it feels as if it'd be more at home here that the TV threads. I love Dorothy Sayers. MN introduced me to her. I wish they'd do another adaptation, but the 1980s ones are surprisingly good.

The wonderful sconerhymeswithgone showed me the existence of these on youtube. (The link is to Gaudy Night, because that's what I'm watching, but there are lots of earlier ones).

What do you think? I liked the casting, but I have quibbles. And the ending to Gaudy Night is a travesty, right?

Thanks, rusty!

petula - yes, must be. She would have graduated at 21/22 and we know she was with thingy for two or three years, then was on trial six months after he died.

She lived with Boyes for a year.

There's a brilliant timeline somewhere (which concludes the opening section of Nine Tailors overlaps with Miss Climpson's seance efforts) but it's in my Kindle which is currently lost!

Harriet was 29 at the time of her trial (the judge says so in his summing-up) and the trial takes place just before Christmas 1929, so presumably she was born in 1900 and was 10 years younger than Peter.

Is it only a year?!

I can't do timelines, I just didn't have that space of emotional time in my head.

Yes, I thought 10 years younger than Peter.

Nine Tailors happens between Have His Carcase and Gaudy Night, doesn't it? There's a brief ref to it in Gaudy Night, near the beginning - Peter takes Harriet out for dinner and tells her about it soon after it's happened.

Though I think Yonic is right about the reference to her 32nd birthday, which means either DLS changed her age, either deliberately or in error or the judge got her age wrong!

I have a vague memory of some reference to Peter being 14 years older, but I may be thinking of Roderick Alleyn and Troy, who I think had a similar age-gap.

No, but the trial is some time before Gaudy Night, so it could work out, couldn't it?

Ah, sorry, cross-posting.

I am very glad I don't ever have to plot a novel.

They may have been in the relationship longer (and I don't think they necessarily met immediately after Oxford) - Harriet's parents died when she was 23. But they lived together on 'good terms' for a year, I think. Then I guess they were split up for several months before he died and several months after was the trial.

BTW, has anyone ever wondered if the Real Villain in SP actually intended to frame HV? And what all the earlier illness epsiodes were about?

The Harriet/Boyes timeline is in the judge's summing up in the first chapter of Strong Poison - they met 'at some time in the year 1927', in March 1928 'the prisoner 'gave in and consented to live on terms of intimacy with him, outside the bonds of marriage'. They quarrelled and separated in February 1929, Boyes had various 'gastric attacks' over the next few months, the last one on the 20th June and he died on the morning of the 23rd.

Jeanne I think that is one of the many reasons why I couldn't write a novel - I would be too obsessive about things like that whereas many brilliant writers just don't seem to get hung up on it so the timelines are somewhat flexible?

Yonic - yes, I wonder! I came to the tentative conclusion that the earlier illness episodes were the villain trying to establish a pattern of gastric illness for Philip Boyes, but they're never actually explained. Plus there is some weirdness with a water jug as well.

I don't think the villain would have known that Harriet was researching arsenic poisoning and had actually bought some arsenic, which was the killer point in the trial.

Nothing to add atm but just wanted to say:

I have found my people!

You have made me re-read Gaudy Night this afternoon in between cooking for multitudes, just for the utter pleasure of watching Harriet and Peter again. Now I'm going to bed with the last few chapters.

One can't reread Gaudy Night too much! I always read the prologue to Busman's Honeymoon immediately afterwards; I'm not a fan of Busman's Honeymoon generally and have only read it once or twice but absolutely love the Dowager Duchess's descriptions of Harriet and Peter's engagement and wedding.

Ah, that makes sense Irene. IMO, the Real Villain was hoping that the death would never be investigated.

We are your people.

I think the gastric attacks are just good, old-fashioned red herrings? I don't like plots that are too neat, and I like that there are all sorts of things that might or might not lead somewhere. Like when Mrs Goodwin in Gaudy Night is vaguely suspected, and in a way, she's a foil for the real killer, because she is in some ways quite similar.

irene - ooh, yes! Lovely description. I do like all the competing descriptions, actually. The snobby Duchess of Denver's one is brilliant - that just is how snotty relations crop up at weddings, times 1000.

At some point, I must start and AIBU as Harriet about that wedding and her SIL, and see who bites.

'DH (who is rather older and richer than I am) and I are getting married, and SIL disapproves. I think it would be nice to get married in a gold lame dress, with the academic staff of my old Oxford college as bridesmaids. SIL thinks I'm bonkers and wants to throw me a huge wedding in London. AIBU to have it my way, then do a disappearing act midway through the reception so she doesn't get to see me leave?

PS: DH's hanger-on is coming with us on honeymoon. That's not weird, is it?'

I think the killer (do we need to avoid spoilers?) chose arsenic because Boyes was subject to gastric attacks, but maybe decided to give the fatal dose on that particular day because Boyes had arranged to see Harriet that evening. So if the death wasn't accepted as due to illness, Harriet would then be the most likely suspect.

Having got Strong Poison off the shelf to look all this up, I'm now taking it up to bed with me...

Or that it was suicide after Harriet turned him down again?

I re-read it two years ago (it was the first book I bought for my kindle) but I think it's due for a re-read so will be next on my list. Right now I am re-reading some of PD James's novels as a kind of memorial.

It was Sayers who introduced me to mystery fiction, which has remained a life-long love. When I was young, my literary tastes were pretty narrow and I had a notion that I didn't like mystery fiction. My grandmother loved detective novels, though, and one day at her house, when I had run out of something to read, I picked up her copy of Nine Tailors. I was hooked and then read all the other books in order. I have been an ardent mystery reader ever since.

Gaudy Night, I mean. But need to re-read Strong Poison, too.

Hmm yes Rusty, that makes sense too.

It's hard quite to believe in Philip and Harriet's relationship, isn't it? He is clearly such a knob and she is so clever and perceptive.

There is a funny bit in Busman's Honeymoon where Peter reflects smugly that Philip was clearly utterly crap in bed

[Happy sigh]

Would it he bad to buy Gaudy Night on my kindle even though I own two copies, so that I can reread it on a plane tomorrow? and busman's honeymoon for the prologue?