I’ve been watching again the BBC adaptations of Dorothy L. Sayer’s Lord Peter Wimsey novels. The ones from the 70s with Ian Carmichael. What brought this on? Netflix had them, and my husband had never seen them. Voilà, I got them, and we watched.
I saw the adaptations before I read the books. I had to be in my early teens when I first saw these shows with Ian Carmichael. I doubt they were in first showing in the States when I saw them. Whenever those series were on TV, I watched. I even videotaped them, probably when I was in college.
I always thought Ian Carmichael and Glyn Houston did a wonderful job as Lord Peter and Bunter. I had no idea how “accurate” the performances were. I just loved the stories and the acting.
I read the books whilst in graduate school. I loved them even more than I loved the TV shows. Quite honestly, if it hadn’t been for the Beeb and Ian Carmichael, I might never have read the books. Adaptation isn’t always a bad thing.
Of course, as I read the books, I kept seeing and hearing Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter. Certainly, Carmichael had the panache, the mien, the intelligence, even the physicality. Lord Peter was always an active character though not frenetic like Sherlock Holmes--nor as antisocial. No, Lord Peter frequently comes across as the “silly ass”, but he is hardly that. It is an act. It reduces whatever threat he might present while asking all his questions. He does possess a formidable intelligence. It is also a defense mechanism. Nobody expects too much of his lordship; he’s just an amiable nuisance.
Ian Carmichael said in an interview done in September 2000 that he had really wanted to play Lord Peter, but it took the Beeb years to get around to it. Oh, various reasons were given, including the usual lack of money. One particular pause came from the fear that Carmichael would play Lord Peter as he had done Bertie Wooster. Carmichael that Sayers had taken much of Lord Peter’s character from Wooster.
(A careful reading of the novels, however, will reveal that Sayers does mock the Jeeves and Wooster relationship. Lord Peter and Bunter do subvert it, and the relationship of genuine affection and respect has added weight in the nightmares of WWI that Lord Peter relives.)
The Beeb shouldn’t have worried. If anything, I think Carmichael underplayed the “silly ass” aspect. He gave subtle view to the psychological scars Lord Peter carries, most obviously in THE UNPLEASANTNESS OF THE BELLONA CLUB and again in MURDER MUST ADVERTISE (the strongest showing of the “silly ass”, too, but that was role within a role). In the former, Lord Peter doesn't want to suspect George Fenteman and spends a good deal of time defending George's rather awkward behavior. In the later, he provides Mr. Tallboys an “honorable” way out. Furthermore, Lord Peter is quite capable of steel, and Carmichael showed that in THE FIVE RED HERRINGS when Peter tells off Gilda Farren with deliberate rudeness and cold truth. I think Carmichael well understood Sayer’s intention with Lord Peter’s character, and was as true to it as he could be.
Ian Carmichael, I think, might've been an underrated actor. There are a couple of scenes in THE UNPLEASANTNESS OF THE BELLONA CLUB (not a favorite when I was younger, but it grows on me) where he says more with a lifted eyebrow or a widening of the eyes than could ever been said by words. In CLOUDS OF WITNESS, Carmichael conveys a wealth of fraternal affection in sad eyes and pained expression.
That does lead to the problem that Ian Carmichael was entirely too old for the role. By the time the Beeb got around to filming the series, he was fifty-two at the start and fifty-five when the last series went in the can. In fact, practically everyone was too old for their parts. That’s the knock against the all five of the series.
The faithfulness to the core or heart of the stories is great strength of the five series. The writing and the acting brought forward the effervescence of the Interwar period--the fast fun, the frightfully hot stuff that was bound to crash back to Earth. Most of the series were incredibly faithful to the novels they adapted. The one I think that strayed the most was THE FIVE RED HERRINGS, but the Beeb, unlike the Divine Dorothy, didn’t cheat. It’s a terribly complicated plot, and in episodic TV, I don’t think could’ve been followed overwell.
I have to confess. I’m glad the Beeb simplified all that stuff on changing ringing in THE NINE TAYLORS. I got lost in all that information in the novel.
I saw very little of the later three series that BBC did about fifteen years later. Edward Petheridge played Lord Peter. He was the right age for the role. Unfortunately, I think he was too stiff as Lord Peter.
The real problem, however, was Harriet Vane. I loathed the character, and I hated the novels in which she featured. If anybody needed to be run over by a tram in the General Strike of 1926, then it was Harriet Vane. I never finished HAVE HIS CARCASS or BUSMAN’S HONEYMOON. I solved STRONG POISON for who, how, and why by page ninety-two. The only one I liked was GAUDY NIGHT, and that is feminist novel, not a mystery, and Harriet is on her own. Too bad she didn’t stay that way.
Sometimes, the adaptation makes a stronger impression than the original medium. In my mind, Ian Carmichael remains forever Lord Peter Wimsey. I doubt I am the only one who believes this.