From book to TV screen: literary adaptations for 2015

Not the most accessible of tomes, we have to admit (and just like James Joyce’s Ulysses, you have to wonder how many people who say they’ve read it, actually have?) But if you like your dramas rich and meaty, there will be plenty to satisfy you in Leo Tolstoy’s 1,200-page epic turned six-part TV drama.
First adapted by the BBC for TV over 40 years ago, this incarnation was filmed in Russia, Latvia and Lithuania,and features an all-star cast including Paul Dano from 12 Years A Slave and Lily James from Downton Abbey, alongside Jim Broadbent and Gillian Anderson.
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Behind the scenes at Downton Abbey

 

Laurie Lee’s much-loved tale about his childhood in a Cotswold village during and after the First World War, was published in 1959 and previously adapted by the BBC in the ‘70s. In this version, newcomer Archie Cox takes the title role, joined by Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominee Samantha Morton (who reveals it’s one of her favourite books), June Whitfield and Jessica Hynes.
 
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10 things you know if you live in the Cotswolds

 

Love a bit of Agatha Christie? Watch out for the adventures of her amateur sleuthing couple later this year, as Christie characters Tommy and Tuppence hit BBC screens in a 1950s-set drama series Partners in Crime, starring David Walliams and Jessica Raine.
2015 is the 125th anniversary of Christie’s birth so the BBC have pulled out a few more stops, also bringing us And Then There Were None; Christie’s most popular novel which has sold over 100 million copies since its publication in 1939.
 
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Published in 1928 and banned for over 30 years, DH Lawrence’s sexually explicit tale of the love affair between an upper-class woman and working-class man went on trial for indecency in 1960. Fast forward to 2015 and the BBC has cast young actors Holliday Grainger and Richard Madden in the lead roles in this one-off 90-minute drama.
 
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Over on BBC Two this year, it’s good news for Benedict Cumberbatch fans as the star gears up to play Richard III in this new adaptation based on Shakespeare’s history plays. (We thought you might prefer to see the man himself rather than Shakespeare for this one …)
Though we had plenty of stars to choose from; joining Cumberbatch in the three-part series are luminaries like Judi Dench, Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Michael Gambon, Keeley Hawes and Tom Sturridge.

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Not an ‘adaptation’ of Robert Louis Stephenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, published in 1886, but a ‘re-imagining’. Okay … Devised by The Fast Show creator and novelist Charlie Higson, who is using the novel as inspiration rather than bible and has updated the action from Victorian London to the 1930s, telling the story of Jekyll’s grandson, played by Tom Batman. It also stars Richard E Grant as the head of a secret government department … Expect lots of shenanigans on ITV when it kicks off …
 
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ITV’s other book-to-screen offering is also based on a classic from the 1800s, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The six-part adaptation keeps its 19th century setting and stars Sean Bean and Anna Maxwell Martin. It has been created by the Emmy-nominated director and writer Benjamin Ross and was filmed in Northern Ireland.
 
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