Hila Shachar is a Lecturer in English Literature at De Montfort University, Leicester, and a member of the Centre for Adaptations who specialises in the adaptation of literary works and authors in various media including film, television, and ballet. Her book, Cultural Afterlives and Screen Adaptations of Classic Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), was featured in The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, as well as nominated for the 2012 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards. She also works as
Read moreTag: Period Adaptations
Katherine Byrne, Review of ‘Doctor Thorne’ (dir. Niall MacCormick, writer Julian Fellowes, ITV, 2016)
Katherine is a Lecturer in English at the University of Ulster, where she teaches nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature and women’s writing. She is the author of Tuberculosis and the Victorian Literary Imagination (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and Edwardians on Screen: From Downton Abbey to Parade’s End (Palgrave, 2015). As it has been some weeks since Julian Fellowes ended his domination of our Sunday night viewing schedules with the Christmas ending of Downton Abbey, it was inevitable that he would
Read moreJames Cutler, The Cultural Afterlives of Our Mutual Friend: ‘Adapting Our Mutual Friend for TV and Radio’ Panel Report
James John Cutler, Royal Holloway James Cutler is a PhD candidate at Royal Holloway, University of London, having previously studied at Aberystwyth, Liverpool and Cambridge. His thesis examines how and why certain places dominate the cultural memory of the most enduringly popular Victorian novelists. It investigates the crucial link between Victorian literary longevity and a cultural heritage characterised by strong associations with particular places. In addition to doctoral work, James volunteers at the Charles Dickens Museum and plays cricket for
Read moreKaren Laird, Film Review: Far From the Madding Crowd
Karen Laird’s book The Art of Adapting Victorian Literature, 1849–1920 will be published in August 2015 by Ashgate Press. Follow her latest updates on Twitter @drkarenlaird. Far from the Madding Crowd was first adapted for film in 1915 by the British studio Turner Pictures. Reviewers on both sides of the Atlantic saw it as a lukewarm effort save for the lead performance by Florence Turner (known early in her phenomenal career as simply “The Vitagraph Girl”). One critic praised Turner’s
Read moreFull steam ahead! Murder on the Victorian Railway
George Dent and Julie-Marie Strange, Trainspotters Extraordinaire A review of ‘Murder on the Victorian Railway‘ first shown 21 February 2013, BBC 2. To watch an earlier interview with Kate Colquhoun, the author of Mr Briggs’ Hat, click here. The body on the tracks; the carriage spoiled with blood; the missing watch; the clue of the hat. Murder! On the Railway! Not, in this case, an Agatha Christie or Conan Doyle mystery, but, the murder of a businessman, Thomas Briggs, on
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