ITV GOES POSH:Mansfield Park

For those who don't read, here's the plot of Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.

Fanny Price, a poor girl with rich relations, is sent to live with the rich relations at Mansfield Park. This happened a lot in Olden Days. The relations never fail to remind her of her place, except the boring middle son, who is nice to her, and gets her to read good books (always important in Jane Austen World). Along come the Crawfords, a slightly twisted brother and sister seduction team who set about seducing Elder Daughter Maria (played by Teen Slater) away from her rich-but-stupid husband; and Boring Middle Son away from the priesthood. Henry Crawford also tries it on with Fanny, but is rebuffed and runs off with Married Maria instead. This brings SHAME upon the lofty Bertram household and everybody realises that Fanny is actually quite a good egg, and more deserving of Mansfield Park than anybody else. Middle Son bins off the Crawford hussy and marries his cousin instead.

So it's a kind of Cinderella story, with added commentary on the patriarchy, sexual politics, the morality of building one's family fortune on human misery, and loads of other stuff about families, rivalry etc. Fab book.

But this is ITV1, and all ITV1 wants is nice frocks, pretty houses and men in britches jumping in ponds. Thankfully the pond-jumping is avoided, but there are plenty of nice frocks about. One of the prettier touches is the change in Billie/Fanny's clothing as she rises in status. She starts off wearing something in brown cotton, and ends up strolling through the lavender hedges in a gorgeous pale blue satin confection that looks good enough to eat.

Somebody has also decided that, as a poor relation, Billie would not have the usual Regency rules of ladylike decorum forced upon her, and therefore she has to express her free-spiritedness by tearing about the house like her life depends upon it. There she goes up the stairs...and there she goes down the stairs. Good thing it's a big house. Billie isn't as insufferable a little prig as the other Fannies I have seen, but I did wish she'd stop running like a hoyden and do something with her hair. The action was mostly shot on hand held cameras that made you feel slightly seasick, but I think it was to make the point that the bulk of MP is about YOUNG PEOPLE HAVING FUN! and not nice frocks and britches. Look! there goes Billie again...she must have forgotten her hat...

Billie's arch nemesis in MP is not a giant Slitheen or even a Dalek, it's her Aunt Norris, played with twitching evil relish by Maggie O'Neill (aka Her from Shameless). Auntie blames Billie for everything, and is eventually banished for blaming Billie for not marrying Henry Crawford and driving him into Teen's married arms.

Edmund the boring middle son was suitably po-faced and intense. Actually, I thought Roistering Eldest Brother Tom was more interesting, and so did Billie by the look of things. Teen didn't have much to do other than look beautiful (check) and rather calculating (check check). Nothing was made of Fanny Price's bluestocking tendencies (except for a timid question over dinner about slavery), and she wasn't banished to Portsmouth to experience Middle Class Hell after refusing the advances of Henry Crawford.

ITV1 crammed one of Austen's denser novels into two hours by concentrating almost wholly on the central romance, which kind of works if you haven't read the book. It galloped through the more meditative aspects - and believe me, there are a few. I kept wishing they'd slow down a bit, and give Billie a hairbrush.

NEXT WEEK: Northanger Abbey, starring That Hussy Emma Grundy!