Pop Vultures

Plattie joins us again to explain how the BBC ruined sex. (Okay, that might be a bit of an overstatement.)

It’s a BBC adaptation of a famous erotic novel about prostitution (the lots-of-sex-is-good kind, not the tragedy-of-the-sex-worker kind), it has a star-studded cast (Alison Steadman, Hugo Speer, Samantha Bond) and it’s broadcast after 9pm which means lots of nudity - hurrah! Sounds like good times all round, right?

Well, I just finished watching the latest BBC costume drama to grace our screens, Andrew Davies’ adaptation of John Cleland’s 1749 novel, Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. Andrew Davies is a veteran of the period novel adaptation, he’s done plenty of them, and it is to him we owe the spectacular 1994 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice. You know the one I mean, with that dripping wet Colin Firth in tight britches scene (Oh! Mr Darcy!). So, it’s fair to say I had high hopes for Fanny Hill, since the book is celebrated as the original erotic novel. I actually wrote a Master’s thesis on eighteenth century erotica, so I could explain to you at length why Fanny Hill is not in any way the original erotic novel, but I will refrain. It is, at any rate, a very raunchy book, and it has never gone out of print once in the last 258 years, so it must have something about it.

The two-part BBC adaptation follows the basic plot of the novel: A young and destitute Fanny Hill comes to London, gets taken in by a madam, is initially horrified at the idea of selling her body but quickly comes around once she discovers that she actually rather likes it, has various adventures, and eventually settles down and marries her one true love. Sorry, by the way, if I have now spoiled the plot for you, but it’s been around for nearly 300 years, so I figure the statute of limitations on spoilers has long expired.

You would think that with scenes including Fanny’s seduction and ‘training’ at the brothel, flagellation with birch twigs, several all-out orgies and at least fifteen more ‘vanilla’ sex scenes thrown in as well, the production couldn’t fail to be at the very least titillating. But somehow, it just doesn’t work.

In the novel Fanny may, for a very few introductory pages, maintain an air of innocence and virginity, but she quickly casts this off and launches herself head-first into a life of iniquity. The joy of the book is in its gleeful dismissal of morality and chastity. The novel’s Fanny goes from one conquest to the next, delighting in their ‘enormous machines’ and ‘furious engines’. But Rebecca Night’s Fanny is an irritating mixture of coy and smug, always remaining aloof from the world she occupies. I appreciate that broadcasting standards prevent the BBC from actually showing any ‘enormous machines’, but with a more overtly sexual actress in the lead role it wouldn’t have mattered.

The beauty of the book is in its downright muckiness. The television version is all authentic costumes, stunning photography and award-worthy set design, but in the end, it’s just too prim and proper. It would seem that Andrew Davies, and the BBC Costume Drama Department, are better at more understated sexuality. I will take Mr Darcy telling Elizabeth Bennet how ardently he admires and loves her over a dozen awkward but beautifully-lit orgies any day.

If you are at all tempted to watch the BBC adaptation of Fanny Hill, I have no doubt they will be repeating it ad nauseum over the festive season. But really, if you’re looking for a bawdy eighteenth century romp, you’ll be a lot better off with the book.