BellaOnline Forums TV and Movies British Television The Crimson Petal and the White

I have read this book several times and the follow up, The Apple, so I am hoping that the series is as good as the book.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0107ry0/The_Crimson_Petal_and_the_White_Episode_1/


Drama based on the bestselling Victorian-set novel by Michel Faber. William Rackham, tormented by debt and an unstable wife, finds solace in young prostitute Sugar.

Okay so far it is true to the book.

The BBC is also showing the film Perfume which is a very good adaptation of the book by German writer Patrick S�skind.

I can't abide 'Perfume - The Story of a Murderer' - the film.

I find it to be gratuitous, plodding - though in the guise of profound - and a waste of good actors. Alan Rickman can do anything, as far as I'm concerned - I just love him, but I must admit his appearance in this vile display was quite a stretch.

Yeah, really - I dislike - OK, disdain - it that much. Why should we all be happy to go along with this kind of film - serial psychopath versus (soon to be dead) virgin (s), with no grace or invention, though laden with pretension.

Just vile.

...oh, and I'm currently watching 'Crimson' with a view to writing about it this evening - so watch this space!!

We're still watching --

I thought the TV series did well with the scenery and costumes and actors but underneath all that the story seemed hollow.

Yes, it ticked all the boxes, was faithful to the book, as far as possible that 4 hours could do a 900 page novel, but I was unmoved ...*

The Apple is discounted on Kindle and I am reading it at the moment.

*I am preferring the machinations in Spartacus!!

As promised on here - I wrote about this drama, here -

The Crimson Petal and the White - BBC Drama

The drama's finished now and I felt the ending was disappointing - threads left untied all over the place. Not sure if the book was this open ended as I haven't read it, but having relaxed into it I was just enjoying the drama and it seemed to end abruptly.

What did anyone else think?

Sorry - I missed the article when I looked last time...

The film ends just abruptly as the book.

In your article you say about Sugar "The scars on her back from past beatings", but they weren't.

Not made clear in the film, but in the book Sugar has some skin ailment that caused her skin to flake and scar, her back was said to have a pattern from these scars.

The makeup the actress wore was a paste with stuff in that flaked off, though you'd have to have known what they were trying to portray to notice it, and that also accounted for her very pale skin colour. You'll maybe notice in the last episode her scratching her hands.

Without going into too much detail on a family site, but it is hard to see what her attraction was to Rackham, who visited her after reading a recommendation in a guide to the houses. The book says she was famous (notorious?) because she would 'do anything' and would never say no to any request. But in the book there is no mention of any demand that Rackham made of her that was unconventional.

The book also says that Rackham's wife had a growth/swelling in her brain which was the cause for her illness, visions etc.

I'm guessing he came for pleasures of the flesh, then was captivated by her intellect and literary education - though how this was provided courtesy of Mrs Castaway's establishment is unclear.

Talking of which - thanks for the explanation about her scarred skin - I suppose the condition she suffered from did not require explanation onscreen and otherwise one would assume they were the result of mistreatment by her clients. And actually - I did feel they were the only clue to her profession! The fellow occupants of her first home all looked desperate and abandoned, yet Sugar seemed to have been dropped into this unlikely environment from another dimension! One with elocution lessons thrown in presumably - though occasionally she remembered she was supposed to be 'common', loik.

I suppose the difficulty was in giving her an air of 'street' (walker) credibility, yet allowing her to be a plausible child's governess, and to accompany her gentleman lover to classy restaurants.

Oh - and what about her book??? How disappointing was that? Floating down the street - and was Rackham supposed to be reading it at the end - ie some lackey had retrieved it and brought it to his home? If so - why?

What happened to his poor deluded missus? Did she end up with the angels in an earthbound convent - or dead in a ditch?

Where on Earth did Sugar go with someone else's child?

I think the Beeb is duty bound to finish it off if the author couldn't be bothered!!

Didn't you see Rackham go with the Police to identify the body on the shore of the Thames?