We managed in rehearsal to insist on the deciphering business in the last minutes of Have His Carcase.
I soon cast myself in the part of purist policeman, insisting that the TV audience, like the reader, should have all the clues. It was the idea of being involved with a ladies’ college for several weeks that set our producer’s teeth on edge and he made sure we didn’t film at Somerville, but – anomalously – at Corpus Christi, one of the much older traditionally male colleges.Īchieving the “definitive” Wimsey was a bit of a struggle sometimes, amongst all the approximations and impurities that arise in adaptations – though one must pay tribute to so many felicitous production touches, those wonderful lady dons, a host of supporting character studies many of them excellent, innumerable studio set design triumphs, and my suits – “shoulders tailored to swooning point” – in Dorothy’s happy phrase. In a ridiculous bid not to give the end away, the character of the culprit was crudely marginalised, the plot at once over simplified. They were used elsewhere too, but it was Gaudy Night that suffered the most at his hands, and he never tired of declaring that the first thing he did when taking on the three book project (which had already been developed to some degree by someone else – who, I never could discover), was to cut Gaudy Night from four episodes to three, though it is the longest of the three novels that were adapted and arguably the best and the most dense. Retrospectively, I can understand our producer’s urge to brandish the secateurs and cool things a bit. Sayers created her ideal man in Lord Peter Wimsey and that she was in love with him not surprising then that for the denouement of Gaudy Night, where he proposes to Harriet Vane for the last and, he knows, crucial time Dorothy pulls out all the literary stops. Sayers Mysteries way back in 1986, kicked over the traces and altered the schedule in a way that might not happen now. This is the story of how Harriet Walter and I, in The Dorothy L.
One has the firm impression that in TV drama these days the ‘men in suits’ (and of course the feminine equivalent) have an iron grip on quality control, and the scripts – by the time they are finalised – are sacrosanct. In an exclusive extract from his forthcoming autobiography A Leaning Towards the Theatre he treats us to a glimpse behind-the-scenes of the filming of the BBC’s Dorothy L Sayers Mysteries and a rather surprising revelation about Peter Wimsey’s proposal to Harriet Vane in Gaudy Night. We are very pleased to welcome Edward back, following his hugely popular interview with us ( here) earlier this year.
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