Andrew Davies is a man whose continued success BAFFLES me.
While his early work may have been good, surely one would have to be insane to count his dramatisations of “Sense and Sensibility”, “The Line of Beauty” and now “Brideshead Revisited” as anything but atrocious travesties by a man whose reputation grows as his powers shrink.
But what has really insensed me is reading in this weekend’s Observer that he had re-written the ending of “Brideshead Revisited” to show Charles Ryder return to the Chapel at Brideshead where he blows out the flame in the sanctuary (this from a character whom Waugh shows to have become – after an internal battle that rages the length of the novel – a Catholic himself). Davies airily admits that this is his “own anti-Catholic” ending.
Can you admit his declaring his delight in having suggested an “anti-Jewish” ( let alone “anti-Muslim”) or “anti-Gay” or “anti-Black” ending? How on earth can someone get away with writing something like that and viewing it as in some way smart or even acceptable? It seems to me that “anti-Catholic” is the last acceptable prejudice (even perceived as “smart” in both senses amongst the liberal intelligentsia) – though I wouldn’t be so stupid as to claim that it was the last prejudice. I’m sure that Mr. Davies’ nasty little mind is prey to a few more prejudices than this one, as his salacious and voyeuristic work is making increasingly apparent.
