Mansfield Park

[RosaLuxembourg]

Did anyone watch the ITV adaptation last night? What did you think? I thought Billie Piper was disastrous as Fanny Price and Mrs Norris not nearly nasty enough, and Lady Bertram not dopey enough, but otherwise I thought most of the characters were true to how I pictured them. However, Fanny as a lively tomboy did NOT work and ruined the whole point of the story.

Agree with you there Rosa, Thought the old version I was forced to wqatch at school was much better. I didn't even watch the end of it. Went to bed!!!!!
You can't put such a long book as MP into a film of less than 2 hrs. It was a very flimsy, VERY Abridged version, with underdeveloped characters and storylines.
Oh dear!!

I agree but TBH its my least liked of her books. Fanny is so drippy in the book it was hard to have sympathy for her.

LOL, agree with that too. Hated it when forced to read it at school. Enjoyed it more when I e-read many years later, but still find it hard to empathise with such a weak character.

To be fair to Billy Piper, she did a good job with what she was given to work with. I actually quite rate her as an actress, it was screenwriting and Direction that changed Fanny so much!!

Yes BOM it was clearly the director's solution to the problem of how to make Fanny sympathetic but it would have been much more interesting if they hadn't tried. And if they'd done it as a three-parter to allow proper story development.

Yes, I probably would've watched the whole thing if it had any kind of depth to the character's at all. They didn't show any of the suffering of Fanny from the older girls, or Mrs Norris, who was far too nice1!!

Rosa, I agree, it should have been a 3 parter, I think it assumed a lot from the audience. To be fair most people who watched would have read it. But it was missing Aunt norris's nastiness, any characterisation at all of the bertram sisters, and missed out the bit where fanny returns to her old life, and can't fit in there.

I've never read it but couldn't work out which was the mum (missed the introductions.) Thought Fanny was too saintly to be true and kept getting Mr Crawford and the eldest brother muddled up, they looked really similar. Zoe from East Enders looked great though, didn't she?
Who did Fanny end up with in the end then, I couldn't be bothered to stay up and find out!