Radio Times

My school years left me with many varied legacies, including an almost pathological adoration for clean, fresh stationery (ah, the smell of a crisp new notebook!) and passionate dislikes of turnip, cauliflower, prunes, cheese sauce and Thomas Hardy.

The latter really wasn't Hardy's fault, but being force-fed Far from the Madding Crowd at 14 just wasn't a good idea. Its many layers and subtle nuances were lost on a group of restive teens in an unpleasant comprehensive in a nasty part of northern England. The tale of a bucolic romance involving a manipulative beauty and her inability to choose the right bloke just didn't do it for us. (Mind you, I've retained a perverse fondness for the film version, starring Julie Christie as Bathsheba Everdene, and the lovely Alan Bates as faithful farmer Gabriel Oak.)

I've had a problem with Hardy heroines ever since. I think it's the winsomeness that's so unprepossessing. In Tess of the D'Urbervilles (9:00pm, Sundays), BBC1's first ever adaptation of Hardy's most famous novel, Gemma Arterton as Tess wisps around in a floaty white frock within the first few minutes. There she is, doing May-Day dances in a lovely green field, looking like something from a shampoo advert, with a dopey look on her face.

Arterton is fine, but there's no avoiding looking at Tess of the D'Urbervilles with modern eyes, and surely every 21st-century female viewer watching will want to yank Tess by the hair before giving her a jolly good shaking. Snap out of it, love! What were you thinking, letting the local cad (Alec D'Urberville, played by Hans Matheson) lift you up onto his horse before he steers you both into the deepest recesses of the woods where you lie, all limp and woozy, on the grass? Didn't you have any idea that he wasn't taking you in there to look for conkers?

It's hard to make Tess appear anything other than vapid, though Arterton has her moments. In the second episode she even gets quite spirited in a confrontation with a condescending parson after a family tragedy. But then she goes off to become a milkmaid (leading to her fateful first meeting with the ghastly Angel Clare) and we are in a Dairylea promotional video.

It will be interesting to see if, and for how long (the series has four parts), viewers take to Tess and whether they can last the course as they follow a doomed heroine who maybe was ahead of her time, but who now just seems annoying.

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Alison Graham is TV editor of Radio Times - read her column in the latest issue of Radio Times magazine, on sale now.

I passionately hate tess of the d'urbervilles. no offense to anyone that enjoyed it, but it was one of the least enjoyable books of literature a-level, mostly because (in my mind) the purpose it served was to indulge Hardy's semi-sadistic preferences towards women. As such, I didn't watch the programme, and am now VERY glad that I didn't.

I think people look to much into the details of the period that this programe isset in. Yes it may not initially be right but as a student who does not know much about those ages i thoroughly enjoyed the series, I enjoyed the acting, i thought the acting shined throughout the program ,I thought the costumes were fabulous the setting was great for each situation and i loved the music. And i do think a girl who has not been eduacated in those times would be naive, also it was stay in the woods with the drunken maids and so on that she could have potentialy been very harmed or ride off with alec (whom she thought she could trust and children tend to think they can trust anybody around that age children nowadays grow up alot quicker and under stand more of the dangers because of tv) i thoguth the prgram was brilliant! and i say well done to the cast and crew ect.

Does anyone really believe that they weren't as naive at 17 as Tess is? I find it hard to either blame Tess for what happens or to call her a wimp when she cries out against the repeated cruelty of her circumstance. I don't believe that the book does either. The book is clear to detail the injustice and twisted morality of the times, something I think is carried through well in the adaptation. She is the victim of others - she is poor, has a blighted reputation, she is abandoned by her husband (who gave her all the signs of loving her to the ends of the earth) and she has no power. She was "more sinned against than sinning". Who wouldn't be a bit depressed?

Since watching the adaptation I've been inspired to reread the book, since I felt I'd missed some of the nuances of it the first time. The book is surprisingly funny at times, and as for its modernity, a world with such a rigid class system, poverty, ignorance and harsh morality and social laws mean it isn't a modern tale. Not to say I can't or haven't empathised with both the Tess in the book and the very accurately and beautifully portrayed Tess in the adaptation. Gemma Arterton shows there is poise but also passionate emotion, naivety and defiance, hope and desperation. So, as to her behaviour, I find it appropriately dramatic and actually holding as much dignity as is conceivable in her position.

I loved the adaptation. It isn't perfect. The music can be just too similar to every other TV period drama, (although it has some wonderful bits too), the pace lags a little towards the end - possibly more to the book's fault than the screenplay but most importantly Tess is spot on, the cinematography is beautiful (and who wouldn't choose the green coastal hills over an ordinary field for the dancing scene?), the direction and cast do pretty well overall and the humour, love and injustice is all there.

Does anyone really believe that they weren't as naive at 17 as Tess is? I find it hard to either blame Tess for what happens or to call her a wimp when she cries out against the repeated cruelty of her circumstance. I don't believe that the book does either. The book is clear to detail the injustice and twisted morality of the times, something I think is carried through well in the adaptation. She is the victim of others - she is poor, has a blighted reputation, she is abandoned by her husband (who gave her all the signs of loving her to the ends of the earth) and she has no power. She was "more sinned against than sinning". Who wouldn't be a bit depressed?

Since watching the adaptation I've been inspired to reread the book, since I felt I'd missed some of the nuances of it the first time. The book is surprisingly funny at times, and as for its modernity, a world with such a rigid class system, poverty, ignorance and harsh morality and social laws mean it isn't a modern tale. Not to say I can't or haven't empathised with both the Tess in the book and the very accurately and beautifully portrayed Tess in the adaptation. Gemma Arterton shows there is poise but also passionate emotion, naivety and defiance, hope and desperation. So, as to her behaviour, I find it appropriately dramatic and actually holding as much dignity as is conceivable in her position.

I loved the adaptation. It isn't perfect. The music can be just too similar to every other TV period drama, (although it has some wonderful bits too), the pace lags a little towards the end - possibly more to the book's fault than the screenplay but most importantly Tess is spot on, the cinematography is beautiful (and who wouldn't choose the green coastal hills over an ordinary field for the dancing scene?), the direction and cast do pretty well overall and the humour, love and injustice is all there.

Given the fact that of all the Hardy novels I have read, this is my least favourite, I wasn't expecting to be gripped by this adaptation. I've read criticism of the pretty dresses and the scenery and the music, together with the usual complaints that the heroine should shrug off her nineteenth century sensibilities and "get a life". Well I've just seen the second episode and I'm hooked. Of course Tess is portrayed (so far at least) as a somewhat naive country girl - is that not appropriate to the story? This drama is an attempt to bring the novel to the small screen, not to update it for modern times. Some of the BBC's recent costume dramas have been spoilt for me by the video game sound effects, the "sub woofer friendly" soundtracks, the painfully modern accents and speech (I could go on). This adaptation comes as a welcome change. Yes, maybe the gritty realities of day to day life aren't authentically portrayed, but I still like what I see. I look forward to watching the remaining episodes after which, I, like I suspect many others, will go back and re-read the book.

I think that Gemma Arterton plays Tess more like a west country girl than the german girl did in Roman Polanskis version. She looks local, dresses right. I think her skin is TOO pale, my only critism. There should be a few light brown moles and the paleness should have a fresh outdoors feel not pallid, she is working outside most of the time. Women from the area at the time would be outwardly 'ladylike' and inwardly tough and a bit roughly spoken at times and I get the impression there is no sense of really hard physical work here in this film. The men would have been a lot more alchohol inspired dirty and rougher and the Alec would probably have been extremely corrupt. The Angel Clare would have been more like a perfectionist religious type he too is also corrupt but he runs on emotion. I like it but as all my family come from the corrupt and unladylike wessex peasants they are trying to portray I think the BBC have made them all too clean and wellspoken. I love the story as my mother worked on a dairy farm.

Tess is my favorite film and I have been looking forward to this adaptation for ages, it has had loads of publicity and I was expecting something wonderful. How disappointing,. I have seen Gemma Arterton at the Globe and I though that she was out of this world so captivating. But I'm afraid that her attempt to capture the vulnerability and strength of Tess did not do her justice,the perfomance was overplayed and at times ridiculous like an adult playing a child in the theater. I did not like this adaptation at all. If you want a taste of the real Tess watch Nastassjja Kinski in Roman Polanski's film, she is heartrendingly beautiful and captures the spirit of Hardys cruel novel completley. Lets hope that the next 3 epsisodes are better than the first, they do look it from the trailers!

I agree with Alison's sentiments on Hardy in many ways but she really should try some of the other lesser known novels which are immensely enjoyable. Last night's Tess of the Dormobiles,(a Johnny Walker, radio 2 injoke) left me cold. I did not like the adaptation at all. These folks were poor for heaven's sake and did not have beautiful creamy/white dresses to skip and scamper on the grass...Will think of you Alison when I see "Far from the Madding Crowd" on stage next month....Moi aussi....I love the brand new stationery....Is this just a women only thing?

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one with an "almost pathological adoration for clean, fresh stationery" (there is SOMETHING about new stationery that is so exciting - and yes, I am sad!) but I read Tess of the D'Urbervilles a year or two ago in sixth form (admittedly of my own volition) and I loved it. Although it's an exceedingly tragic book and you do get a tad frustrated with Tess, you cant help but pity her. She is a victim of the world around her and isn't allowed to rebel against it - the multitude of obstacles she comes up against is alarming! I hated Alec but I cant say much for Angel either. If I were Tess I would have punched the both of them and gone off somewhere where the men were a bit more sensible. But then I suppose Im not Tess and recalling what she goes through in the novel, thank God for that!