TV Review: Wuthering Heights
By Jeremy Clay
If ITV's take on Wuthering Heights (9pm, Sunday) was an album, it'd be a grower. I watched it, twice. The first time, it left me cold. It seemed oddly empty; soulless, even. And episodic rather than fluid.
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Tom Hardy as Heathcliff – or is it Edward Scissorhands?
Tom Hardy's much-vaunted Heathcliff looked more like Edward Scissorhands or a minor member of Kasabian than a landowner from the Georgian era. He also spoke like a character from an Armstrong and Miller sketch: that boozy detective with the imaginary engine driver sidekick called Mr Chuffy.
Worst of all, writer Peter Bowker had played fast and loose with the structure of the novel. Characters were dumped. Scenes disappeared. Entirely new ones appeared in their place.
So, in the long, long list of Wuthering Heights adaptations, the best thing to say about this one was that it was another.
But then the nagging doubts set in. Bowker is a respected screenwriter. Director Coky Giedroyc has a Bafta on her mantelpiece. Hardy is a fine actor, and leads a strong cast. And ITV have clearly lavished some cash on the production.
If anyone was going to have got it wrong here, it was going to be me, not that lot. So I watched it again, just to make sure.
Sure enough, I had got it wrong. Second time around, Wuthering Heights was better than I credited. Yes, they've mucked about with the framework of the plot, but we shouldn't be precious: it's okay to tinker, as long as the story isn't weakened.
Hardy's performance was subtler than I'd noticed, too. And Charlotte Riley, as Cathy, brought a sparkle to the role.
She is actually northern, too, which may be a first.
Even the opening, when a restless camera swoops over the darkened moors to the sound of Siouxsie and the Banshees-style thumpy drumming, didn't seem quite so daft.
And Andrew Lincoln, as calm, mannered Edgar Linton – the flipside of stormy Heathcliff – delivered a solid performance.
He did that thing, though. That acting thing. The one he always does, when he breathes in sharply halfway through a line, and pulls a face like he's fighting flatulence.
Most distracting.
How to rile your core audience, a two-part masterclass by ITV. First, break with 50 years of tradition by bumping Coronation Street from its time-honoured Wednesday night slot to Thursday evenings, to make way for live football.
Then, just weeks later, pull Friday night's episode to screen a match between a Spanish side and a Ukrainian one (UEFA Super Cup, 7.30pm, Friday, ITV).
Granted, that Spanish side were Barcelona. But all the same, is it really necessary to ditch Britain's best-loved soap for a competition which could rival the World Club Cup for insignificance?
Screen the game, by all means. But stick it on ITV2 or ITV3.
I don't think anyone's going to object to missing out on The Xtra Factor or a repeat of Agatha Christie's Poirot.
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by Sarah Wright, Yorkshire
Tuesday, September 01 2009, 10:27AM
“Last nights Wuthering Heights added dimensions but left me feeling in need of something more. The characters had more life than previous adaptations but it felt rushed. I had to keep a running family tree in my head to keep up . The ending was hashed and those who havent read the original will be left wondering why all the fuss over the Brontes ! This was more Mills and Boone. Not enough use of the beautiful moors , too much rushing about --poor Nellie must have been very fit dashing between the Heights and the Grange. On the plus side Tom Hardy and Charlotte Rilley gave their characters life , I could understand Heathcliffe better from this production and any one interested in the pathology of adopted children and attachment issues had a classic textbook example . Heathcliffe could have been a very different person if Earnshaw hadnt died and Hindley wasnt so jealous .
All in all I was left wanting more substance . Is our culture becoming more and more dumbed down ?”
by Jane Stanbury, Near Haworth
Tuesday, September 01 2009, 10:09AM
“For me this was rather like dining in an expensive restaurant only to find the essential ingredients had been spoiled by an intrinsic lack of understanding the essence of the dish.
I am not a purist by any means,
Sally Wainrights' brilliant Sparkhouse inspired by Wuthering Heights is summarised by love, betrayal and obsession encapsulating the raw emotion and cruelty underpinning the principle characters relationship and of the landscape which echoes these aspects .
I had waited expectantly for this version, and applaud Tom Hardy as Heathcliff, whose complex character is generally assigned to older actors which often dilutes the passion of youth.Unfortunately his Cathy lacked for me any depth of passion in her portrayal. When she dreamed of being rejected by the angels and flung back to the more she could have been reading a shopping list for all the raw emotion conveyed. I am at odds with this production as it promised so much in terms of location and cast yet creatively left me cold. There is so much within the book that the writer of any adaptation need not embellish add or reinvent which leads me to wonder was it the script, the casting or the director that missed the point?”
by Emma, Manchester
Tuesday, September 01 2009, 9:33AM
“I don't care who it was made by, this was a poor adaptation by ITV. It felt rushed and unclear, it made no real cinematic use of its surroundings. No wide shots of the moors just quick close up flashes of heather. The ghost was simply stupid, completely unsubtle. ITV had obviously lavished money on the production, wardrobe and cast but the fundamental threads of the story had been butchered A DvD for sale??I don't think so!TV drama has never been so bad.”
by Corrina, Haworth (really!)
Tuesday, September 01 2009, 8:33AM
“I was loving it (albeit biting my critical tongue at times) until the end, with the invented suicide of Heathcliff !!! This was so unnecesary...the nature of his death added to the supernatural element, to the ambiguity of his character (no one knew of his beginning or his end) and it seems like a sop to the audience to have him shoot himself (the questions it raises about his nature aren't Emily Bronte's) and go for the Happy Ever After ending. Until that, I thought it was wonderful.”
by margaret, isle of wight
Tuesday, September 01 2009, 8:07AM
“i found it compulsive viewing but sometimes Tom Hardy had the look of Elvis Presley `Heathcliffe huh huh huh`”