Last night’s viewing included the delightful BBC adaptation of ‘Mapp and Lucia’. I was looking forward to this as I enjoyed the previous version with Prunella Scales as Mapp and Maggie Smith as Lucia. E F Benson was gay, and though in the ’30’s he could hardly have been ‘out’ in the modern sense, he is remarkably free in his fictional characterisations. Though Mapp and Lucia are both heterosexual and end up marrying, ‘quaint Irene’, the cigar-smoking, dungarees-wearing artist, is clearly lesbian. There is also, despite the petty snobberies, an enjoyable freemasonry among the characters who, apart from Miss Mapp who is continually counting things to make sure the servants haven’t stolen them, respect and appreciate their servants and talk to them almost as equals. Georgie Pillson will not take Glebe Cottage (why is there always a Glebe Cottage? I’m sure there’s one in the Archers, if it hasn’t been flattened to make way for a hyperspace bypass *) until he has consulted his maid Foljambe. Her comfort and convenience comes almost before his own.
Miss Mapp is amusing and we almost like her, but she’s too petty and miserly to be lovable: Lucia, however, is adorable. With her smatterings of Italian, she is the undisputed Queen of Tilling, even though she’s only there for the summer. Anna Chancellor is perfect as Lucia, but I’m not entirely sure about Miranda Richardson’s portrayal of Mapp: she’s a little too toothy and smiley for my liking. I think Prunella Scales did her suppressed rage much better.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04wthbv/mapp-and-lucia-episode-1
The setting is also part of the appeal: set in Rye, Sussex, where Benson (and Henry James) lived, it is very attractive and features some unique houses. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but if you go to Rye there are plaques on the doors of the houses where some of the characters lived. It reminds me a little of Eyam in Derbyshire, though for different reasons. There, the names on the door were of plague victims who shut themselves up to die so that they wouldn’t spread the infection.
A plaque on both your houses?
Kirk out
*Yes, I know that’s ‘Hitch-Hiker’s’ but they might as well have a hyperspace bypass, the way they’re going
Sarada Gray 
I’m a Mapp and Lucia fan. I agree about ‘too toothy and smiley’. An excellent ‘quaint Irene’. Felt a bit proprietary: how dare they do a new production when the original was so perfect? As for Rye, well me and the missus went there for our honeymoon in 1960 when it was plaqueless: highly recommended.Yes, I mean Rye, of course!
Spock out
Yes
Yes, Rye is lovely. We went to Rye Harbour in 2011 and I got three poems out of it, one about the receding coastline, one about Dungeness and one about Camber Sands. Maybe should have written something about Mapp and Lucia?
I adore Mapp and Lucia! And I have, in fact, just written about it myself. I believe that there are reasons why Steve Pemberton (who wrote the script and played Georgie) made Mapp more likable – it’s what the 21st century audience is used to. There are rarely any characters who are wicked through and through and we don’t seem to crave comic, but ‘real’ characters. That’s actually something to discuss, I believe. In the end, I think it’s best not to compare the two adaptions, but to admit that they both have their right to exist.
They do indeed; though it is interesting to compare and contrast, if not perhaps to evaluate
You’re right. Actually, contrasts and comparisons are necessary to understand developments of any kind. Only sometimes I feel too emotionally involved to really be objective, so I’m careful.