UPDATE: Looks like it’s not going to happen due to costs, according to Deadline
The BBC and HBO announced over a year ago that they were working on a new adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. Written and directed by Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name) and made by the production companies behind Parade’s End, Endeavour and Poldark (to name a few of their period productions).
The cast announced thus far includes Andrew Garfield (Breathe) as Charles Ryder, Joe Alwyn (The Favourite) playing Sebastian Flyte. Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Lion) as Julia Flyte and Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett as Lord and Lady Marchmain respectively.
Information so far is sparse, on IMDB the project is just listed as ‘announced’ in each of the actors profiles. Initial reports had it scheduled to start filming in the Spring of 2021, which evidently hasn’t happened, but then everything has been disrupted by Covid.
It’s a brave decision to film another adaptation of Waugh’s classic. The 1981 Granada Television adaptation was perfect in virtually every detail, and is held up as a textbook example of how to adapt a classic book for the screen. Although credited to John Mortimer, it is widely accepted that the bulk of the writing was done by the producer Derek Granger. The incredibly faithful and reverential adaptation extended to over ten hours of riveting television.
Jeremy Irons as Charles Ryder and Anthony Andrews as Sebastian Flyte | ITV, Rex Features
Every nuanced allegory and suggested meaning of the text was given its place, building gracefully into a sweeping drama detailing the melancholy end of an era, set alongside withering examinations of the contradictions, excesses and failings of British society between the wars. This Vanity Fair interview with Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the show’s original director is a brilliant insight into the making of the series.
There was a movie adaptation in 2008, which fell rather flat, despite a good cast. Period adaptations tend to be rather formulaic today, Downton Abbey has a lot to answer for. Actually I say formulaic, I really mean ‘utterly historically inaccurate’. The ITV Brideshead Revisited is essential viewing, despite being shot in the boxy 4:3 ratio, grainy and lit in that flat and unflattering way everything was in the 70’s and 80’s.
We shall pounce on any drips of information surrounding the project. It has to be said that Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name was a brilliant film, not least because it was the one that brought Timothee Chalamet’s talent to everyones attention. Perusing the IMDB details for this Brideshead adaptation reveals one alarming thing – filming locations so far listed are Sydney Australia and Utah USA. Not exactly places that pop into the head when reading the book. Maybe they’ll set it in America… Now that really would be awful. So we’re not holding our breath for it quite yet.
