'Dairy of a Nobody' true to text - Davies

HE'S renowned for "sexing-up" the unlikeliest of staid literary classics with a dose of nudity and sex.

And he provoked controversy with his uncompromising scenes of lesbian lust in the BBC drama Tipping The Velvet.

But master screen adapter Andrew Davies has now had to fend off claims he's becoming "tame" in his old age, with a new drama displaying little of the raunchiness of earlier works.

In a BBC Wales commission of George Grossmith's Edwardian classic Diary of a Nobody - best described as a kind of lower middle-class journal of the everyday frustrations of fictional narrator Charles Pooter - he's chosen to remain true to the original text.

This is a marked departure from saucy for Cardiff-born Davies, although this time he says it was "easier" not to turn up the heat on Pooter.




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"I've played him straight," said Davies, "We've done it as a one man show as a talking head, with Hugh Bonneville playing Pooter.


"He's doing everything so you have to imagine the other characters.


"The biggest challenge was making the characters come alive through Pooter's narration. We have to be able to see through it, because he's not an entirely reliable narrator. So much of the humour comes from his not being able to see the joke that we see.


"It is one of the funniest books ever written in the English language and I used to read it growing up in Rhiwbina as it was a favourite of my father's.


"It's appealing mainly because of the gentle humour - the insights it gives you into late Victorian life - and Pooter himself, who is a wonderful character, genuinely loveable.


"I'm sure there was a dark side, but it doesn't enter Pooter's little world. Pooter himself is as gentle as you could wish. His friend, Gowing, goes in for rather dangerous practical jokes, but that's about as dark as it gets.


"I really love Pooter. Sometimes you just love someone so much you want to do it just the way to is - it's easier anyway."


Davies, however, says he'll be "back to form, stretching things as far as they can go" in a small screen adaptation of the 18th-century novel Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.


This is likely to be at least as controversial as his adaptation of the Booker-winning novel The Line of Beauty shown on BBC2 last year, a tale of hedonism and homosexuality set against Margaret Thatcher's reign as Prime Minister in the 1980s.


His compelling screenplays of Tipping the Velvet, Vanity Fair, Wives and Daughters and Pride and Prejudice - featuring an iconic scene of Colin Firth's Mr D'Arcy emerging dripping wet from a lake - have all secured his reputation for turning literature into ratings winners.


Literary purists may have criticised some of the adaptations, but Davies claims he is merely filling in the gaps that earlier authors were forced to leave out due to the conventions of their time.


Father of two Davies, 69, who lives with his wife Cathy in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, said, "These authors would have made their sex scenes much clearer, had they known they were going to be read in our times."


He's also just finished the first draft on a screen adaptation of Middlemarch for director Sam Mendes, the Oscar-winning director of American Beauty.


"I did a great big TV adaptation of this back in the '90s so it's strange to be revisiting it again and trying to cut it down to two hours," Davies said.


"So I'm struggling with that at the moment. I think, though, it'll be like the last one I did but I'll make it more of a love story.


"Because it'll be a film, you can't spend too much on town politics and the way the different families in it interact with each other.


"I'm going to concentrate on the four main characters. It'll be much more romantic and emotional than the series.


"And I think Sam wants Kate Winslet [Mendes's wife] to play Dorothea. I don't think she'll be able to say no, will she?"


Diary of a Nobody is on April 24 at 9pm on BBC4


Davies eyes up 'Doctor Who' summons
Andrew Davies says he's now waiting for 'the summons' to write an episode of BBC Wales' ratings winner Doctor Who.


Although he hasn't yet been approached, he is keeping a close eye on the comings and goings of the Doctor - and the success that the Cardiff centre where it is made is having.


And although he credits the quality work of its writers, actors and crew with much of its allure, he is unreserved in his admiration for its head of drama, Julie Gardner.


'She's transformed the department at BBC Wales,' he says.


'I love doing as much work as possible for them, and part of that is because I get to work with Julie.


'The department is relatively small and you don't have to go through loads of bureaucracy to get things done.


'She's helped bring Life on Mars, Doctor Who and Torchwood to people's screens. She's got terrific taste and loads of enthusiasm, and everyone wants to work with her. And I'm one of those.


'She's not afraid to keep her contacts and use them. I met her years ago when I was doing something for Granada. She took over as producer when someone went on maternity leave and she kept up the contact.


'She gets her hooks into you - in a good way!


'I've not been asked to do Doctor Who yet, though - I'm awaiting the summons.'