I remember we had been on our annual September visit to Venice, and when we returned I was told that London Films had made a deal with the BBC to produce the first four books. I could hardly believe it – or believe my luck. My admiration for the BBC’s costume drama productions knew no bounds. The Forsyte Saga, the adaptations of Henry James, of Jane Austen, of George Eliot, of Anthony Trollope had conditioned me to such a high standard of excellence that I was wholly confident in their ability and their goodwill to put a faithful interpretation of my novels on the small screen. Surprisingly, apart from Night Without Stars, I had been pretty faithfully served by the producers and the directors of the cinema. In spite of all their appalling reputations for taking a novel and distorting it after their own fancies, Take My Life, Fortune is a Woman and later (though I was not to know this) The Walking Stick had all stuck closely to the story of the novel. How much happier, then, was I to feel that these books were going to be entrusted to our own BBC, whose reputation for integrity was so high, indeed impeccable.
In due course I met Maurice Barry, who was to be the producer of the whole sixteen episodes, and Simon Masters, the script editor, and Christopher Barry (no relation), who was to direct the first four episodes covering the first novel, Ross Poldark. We had a jolly lunch, discussing scripting, casting and locations. Jack Pulman was to write the first four episodes, and I could not have been happier about this, as he had adapted many of the classic novels screened, with great tact and with great skill. I was really in good hands.
A few weeks later – uninvited – I went down to join the unit which had gone to Cornwall to scout for locations. Chris d’Oyly John was the production manager, and it was clear that, although he did not know much about Cornwall, he much preferred his own investigations there to receiving unwelcome suggestions from the author, who happened to have lived in Cornwall for thirty years. (The only way to get his cooperation, I found, was to be fiendishly clever and put the idea of a location into his head in such a way that he believed he had thought of it himself.)
On the second day of our tour we stopped for a snack lunch at Portreath, and I paid for the group. Softened by this generosity – I discovered it was really the only way to his heart – Maurice Barry drew me aside and told me that ‘of course’ there had had to be some alterations in the early scripts, that is alterations from the storyline in the novel. Knowing the film industry, and knowing how much more scrupulous the BBC was bound to be, I replied that I was used to the changes necessary to present a story in picture form, and we left it at that.
When I first sold an option to Robert Clark I had made it a condition of the sale that they should oversee and vet any production they had a hand in and would preserve the story and the characters without unnecessary distortion. Leslie Baker, the managing director, had gladly given me his personal assurance.
However, I had no qualms. It was further a condition of any sale that I should see the scripts and be able to comment on them. (Script approval is virtually never given, and it is unrealistic to ask for it.)
Partly for reasons of time, a different scriptwriter had been assigned for each of the four books, and Simon Masters, as script editor, was to oversee them and keep an eye on their continuity. The writer allotted for Ross Poldark was, as I have said, Jack Pulman.
What was my surprise, as bad novelists say, when the first two scripts arrived and I found the story totally distorted, Demelza’s character changed, and my carefully studied Cornish dialect swept away, and in its place a sort of phoney Zummerset which only exists inside the close confines of television studios.
Indeed, not a line of my own dialogue was retained. It was as if the scriptwriter had read the book through a couple of times and then thrown it away and told the same sort of story in his own words.
I would make it clear that I was not some middle-aged novelist who had had no experience of the cinematic or dramatic world and considered his precious creations sacrosanct. I had had two full-length scripts made into feature films, and I had contributed substantial parts to half a dozen others. I had had six of my novels filmed, and I was completely aware that in any translation from novel to film there must be abbreviation and broad strokes. Above all, dialogue must be understandable, and dialect can only be used sparingly and with that stipulation in mind.
(Where dialect was used in these scripts it was no more understandable, and it was as Cornish as haggis.)
What stuck in my crop beyond all swallowing were the ridiculous liberties taken with the characters and with the stories. Hitchcock at his most egocentric could hardly have done more. (And in fact had done less.) It was a cold April morning, if I remember, when I called to see Leslie Baker, of London Films, reminded him of the undertaking of his firm to see that these novels were fairly presented, and told him that I wanted the whole project cancelled. They must tell the BBC that the deal was off; and I would repay the money that I had so far received.
He was naturally full of apologies and consternation. He had noticed the changes, of course, and certainly did not like them, but he rather thought that I had been consulted over them. I said I had not, and I wanted the whole thing cancelled, wiped out, forgotten. He looked at my face, which must have been white with anger, and said he would consult his fellow directors, particularly Mr Robert Clark, the chairman, and approach the BBC and see what he could do.
I remember walking down St Martin’s Lane and into Trafalgar Square, trying to breathe out my fury. It wouldn’t go. If anyone had offered me a helicopter and a bomb, I should have leapt at the chance and should have known just where to drop it.
Though I have never been appraised of the details, I gather that there was a great deal of telephoning and consultation, and meetings in the BBC and threats of resignation here and there. However, the outcome was that London Films welched on me and, while making my angry protests known, had felt the production was too far advanced for it to be cancelled. Further, this was the very first joint venture between them and the BBC, and for it to end in disaster would prejudice any future cooperation between them.
So the production went ahead. In view of its enormous success it was as well. However, the ruction I caused was not in vain, for after Episode 4 the scripts kept much more closely to the books (except for the final episode, No. 16, where the whole thing went haywire again. In this episode, apart from scenes of the miners being driven from their homes by cruel bailiffs, and the burning down of Trenwith – incidents which no doubt could have happened in Ireland or in France but never did in Cornwall – Maurice Barry wanted Elizabeth to go mad, and was only restrained from this enormity by the terms of the contract, and no doubt the apprehension of my wrath).
One of the difficulties of my position was that I never dealt directly with the BBC on the first series; all my communications went through London Films. Probably things would have been much easier had I been able to have the personal contact.
Anyway, when the script for Episode 5 came along and I thought well of it, I let London Films know and said I would like to go down and see some of the shooting in Cornwall. Producer Maurice Barry sent word through London Films that I would not be welcome on the set, and if I came to their location I would be treated as an ordinary member of the public.
This was not a general feeling. Christopher Barry who, as the first of the three directors, must have been very much involved in the early squabbles, wrote to say how disappointed he had been not to see me during the shooting. And when, much later, I recognized Clive Francis (who played Francis Poldark) at my club and made myself known to him, he put his arms round me and said: ‘ But why haven’t you been to see us? We thought you didn’t like us!’
‘ Not like you?’ I said. ‘The very reverse! I like and admire you all!’
However, Maurice Barry’s spite kept me away, and, although meeting and coming much to admire Kenneth Ives, the third director, I saw none of the shooting of the first series.
There were of course other, though minor, annoya
nces. I never know why TV companies pay such scrupulous attention to material detail – every little item of clothing and furniture has to be true to the period – yet are so slovenly about the spoken word. Of course, all period dialogue is a compromise. In The Fifth Queen, a novel by Ford Madox Ford about Catherine Howard, the author uses dialogue as nearly true to the time as it is possible to get, and very impressive it is. Rose Macaulay in They Were Defeated, a novel about Herrick, also uses language faithful to the time.
This is no longer really acceptable – certainly not on TV, and rightly so. But use of the language of today can be controlled and stripped of its more modern idioms. Before I began to write any of the Poldarks I would always read Sterne, Swift, Gay, Chesterfield, Sheridan, in order to get something of the flavour and cadences of the speech of those days. I believe one can achieve a sense of the eighteenth century without using archaic words or words of old-fashioned meaning. But the fashionable catchphrases of today should be avoided like the plague.
In the very first scene in Poldark, when they are jogging along in the coach, someone says: ‘You must be joking.’ I drew attention to this, but my letter was ignored. In the second (or third) episode Elizabeth comes to Ross and tells him she is going to divorce Francis because of his infidelity. I pointed out that until the Act of 1857, divorce could only be achieved by Act of Parliament, usually took two years and cost about £10,000. This they very grudgingly altered. In the second series (yes, the second, which generally was so much, much better), at a dinner party at Tehidy, Caroline Enys asks Sir Francis Basset if he thinks there is going to be war. I pointed out that at this date England had been already at war with France for several years, and it was like someone in 1940 asking if it is thought there is going to be a war when Hitler controlled virtually all Europe.
It was, less grudgingly, changed because I was on the spot. But in the first episode of the second series Ross Poldark is returning from Holland and is seen galloping home across the sands. This was well done, but a research girl pointed out that in 1796 an army officer did not wear his hat peak over nose, like Wellington later, but peak ear-to-ear like Napoleon. So the whole morning’s shooting was scrapped and reshot next morning with the hat correctly worn. That all seems a little disproportionate.
So far as the Cornish dialect was concerned they did not of course consult me, but instead engaged a dialect coach, from Liverpool, who had been to Cornwall twice to direct productions at the Minack Theatre. In fact neither he nor I should have been necessary. Actors are such quick and clever mimics that those who needed an accent could have been shipped to Cornwall for a week, and they would have picked it up, and it would have been near enough to the genuine thing.
I disliked the series so much that when it was about to be shown I seriously considered wintering in Jamaica to avoid it. But then Episode 5 came along, with an even better 6 and 7, and I began to be reconciled, even excited. And from a fairly slow beginning the series was proving enormously popular. Audience viewing grew from five to ten million. The Attorney-General gave word that no social or other appointments were to be made for him during the hour that Poldark was on. Church services were advanced so that parishioners should be able to get home in time. Later people went mad about it in Spain and Greece. In Israel, I was told, when it was shown on Tuesday nights, the series was the chief topic of conversation in the shops on Wednesday morning.
Naturally I was more than delighted with the success of the series in England, and strove hard to overlook the enormities of the earlier scripts. Then there came from the BBC the proposal that a second series should be made. The Black Moon was already published. The Four Swans was finished. I was just beginning The Angry Tide. It had somehow come to someone’s notice in the BBC that I had not been quite enraptured with the way the first series was done, so they sent down one of their best producers, an Australian called Anthony Coburn, to see me and to find out the reasons for my objection. He came and I let him know them. A jolly, bluff, candid man, he took my views aboard and reported to the BBC. He then wrote inviting me to lunch with the executive producer of the day, Bill Slater, and himself. I went along.
Bill Slater was a very pleasant, civilized man, and we had a pleasant, civilized meal. He soon raised the question of a second series, and told me that Tony Coburn had passed on to him my dissatisfaction with the first.
‘ Nevertheless,’ he added, ‘the series has been a tremendous success.’
‘ It has,’ I agreed, ‘and I’m truly delighted about that. Both delighted and excited. And nothing, I assure you, would give me greater pleasure than to see a second series made …’
‘ Then?’
‘ But if you want the same producer; or any of the same directors; or any of the same scriptwriters, we’ll just enjoy this meal together and then go home and forget all about it.’
He seemed startled. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Can you be more explicit?’
I was more explicit. He looked a bit pale. ‘I knew practically nothing about this. I’m very sorry it happened.’
We went on with our lunch.
‘ Look,’ he said. ‘Thinking over what you’ve just said … I’m not in a position to write any of your stipulations into a contract for a second series, but if I gave you my word that I’ll personally see that they’re met, then will that do?’
‘ Gladly,’ I said.
We shook hands on it and the meal ended happily for us all.
Tony Coburn was appointed producer for the second series of thirteen instalments, and, probably feeling they had been remiss in not involving me more actively in the first series, London Films appointed me their representative on the coproduction, so that if needed I always had an official justification for being about. But in fact I was always made welcome. I kept my active interference to an absolute minimum.
There were exceptions once or twice. At the end of Episode 5 (the last part of The Black Moon), Ralph Bates, playing George Warleggan, is told by old Aunt Agatha, played by Eileen Way, her reasons for believing that he is not the father of the son just born to his wife Elizabeth. In the novel he stares at her with bitter hatred and goes out, slamming the door behind him. In the script he takes her by the throat and shakes her. Legitimate dramatization. But as it was directed it looked unquestionably as if George had strangled her. I objected that this was contrary to the intention of the book and a distortion of George’s character. So it was reshot.
Incidentally in the film, Ralph Bates’ progression from room to room of the house as the old woman’s venom sinks in was one of the finest pieces of acting of the series.
All the scripts were discussed with me, under Tony Coburn’s supervision, and then the final scripts were sent to me for approval. Tragically, Tony Coburn died of a heart attack with the series half done. His replacement, another Australian, was taken ill with overwork – he was producing another series, The Plantagenets, at the same time – so the final episodes were produced by Colin Tucker. Unasked, we had three producers on this second series, as well as two new directors and three new scriptwriters.
It is difficult to know how much, if any, difference the ordinary viewer detected between the two series. Obviously the second series, being a sequel, lacked some of the original impact of the first, and – not knowing the characters or the storyline in the original books – deviation did not worry them. (It worried and offended many who had read the books first.) It was very pleasant to see some of my own dialogue surfacing and being as speakable and audible as the rest.
Perhaps the acid test is audience viewing. Ratings for the second series were higher all through and were still rising at the end.
In the light of this, perhaps it is not surprising that the BBC wanted a third series. About Episode 8 or 9, they sent down Graeme McDonald, the head of drama at that time, to Cornwall – where shooting was in progress – to put the proposition to me that I should write a third series, which could go into production next year.
My reply was
simple but sad. I had enjoyed very few things in my life more than being involved in this second production, in becoming personal friends of most of the actors and actresses, of the production teams, of seeing my own stories, my own characters, and – some – of my own dialogue reproduced with enviable spirit and dedication. My wife and I had almost become mascots of the cast, and they seemed sometimes not to want to start until we were there. We had parties in the evenings and happy lunches sitting in canvas chairs or on the steps of caravans, joking and eating and establishing a wonderful camaraderie. Several of the professionals said they had never had such an enjoyable time – it must go on.
‘ Graeme, I’m really sad about this,’ I said. ‘I would have had no conditions to make this time. In fact, to continue the series I’d be perfectly willing to contribute the next thirteen or sixteen episodes free. But where are they coming from? The story – my story – ends with the death of Elizabeth. There is no more.’
‘ Think it over,’ he said gently. ‘We’ll gladly lend you a couple of scriptwriters to help you through your blockage.’
I said: ‘Dear Graeme, it isn’t a blockage, it’s an endage.’
As indeed it was. The death of Elizabeth brought the whole conception full circle. There was nothing to add. And even if there were still plenty of loose ends from which new ideas would develop (as I found in due course) they couldn’t be forced, they couldn’t be contrived, fitted together like a Meccano frame. Whatever quality or lack of it the Poldark novels possess, they are organic, they have to grow; forcing them would have distorted history and the doings of a family, both of which were too dear to my heart.
‘ Think it over,’ Graeme McDonald urged again. ‘Don’t decide at once. We’ll meet in London in a few weeks when you have had time to reflect.’