Ballet Shoes (BBC One, Boxing Day 2007) http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt1083845/ Adaptations both are and are not, risky prospects. Television companies and film studios make them because they believe that they're safe prospects, being familiar properties and so attracting an interested audience. Adapting a book also offers a touch of class to a TV or film production, more often than not. With 'Ballet Shoes', you have a widely acclaimed classic with nostalgic connotations from the viewers' childhood, and for the period in which the book is set. And yet, like I said, it's a risky proposition. The screenwriter has to translate the material to a different medium, for a different age, while they (and of course everyone else involved in the production) are putting their own stamp on readers' long-held personal view(s) of the book. Maybe influenced by their own long-held view, maybe not.
( Read more... )My thoughts on the book can be found
here.