We have just finished watching The Paradise on our updated Philips G22K550 single standard colour
television. And by updated, I mean that Henry now holds a Freeview aerial just
outside the drawing-room window, instead of an analogue aerial.
The Paradise is,
of course, based upon a book, Au Bonheur
des Dames by Émile Zola. The novel is set in a department store in
Paris, which was still a new development in the mid-nineteenth century retail
world. The establishment in the book was
modelled on M. Aristide Boucicaut’s Le Bon Marché, rumoured to be the first of its kind in the world. The BBC's latest costume drama relocates the
story to North East England, and shortens the name of the shop from Au Bonheur
des Dames to The Paradise. So far, this
makes a sort of sense, as the actual
world's first department store was Bainbridge's in Newcastle upon Tyne.
My first criticism from day one was that about 96% of the
time, the store owner John Moray has his named mispronounced as more-ray,
rather than Murray, which sounds particularly odd when applied to an actor from
Edinburgh. But, you see, they kept the
French pronunciation of the original character, Octave Mouret (like Merlot. Yes, it does have a silent 't'. Claret, on the other hand, does not).
Our protagonist is Denise Lovett (no silent t’s there), who
has moved down from Peebles to a fictional or at any rate unnamed north-east
town to work in her uncle’s draper's shop.
However, he is unable to provide any work because The Paradise over the
road is poaching all the local custom.
So, without further ado Denise (illustrated, above right) walks across the street and takes a job
at the very place that is causing her uncle’s ruin.
After much flouncing about, drama, silly class blindness,
drama, unconvincing star-crossed lovers, silly accents, drama, unconvincing
missing arms, drama, silly tartan suits, and more drama, it ends on a rather
abrupt note with lots of loose ends and some bland kissing, as if the writers
just got bored of all the drama and stopped writing, a mere eight episodes in.
Don't worry, they've been commissioned for a second series,
so all ends will be tied, I'm sure.
However, while you are waiting, here are Lady Cynthia's
recipes for how it ought to have
ended:
Pornography
Moray finds Denise out in the yard. She's got tears in her eyes and she's all hot
and bothered from wearing all those black skirts whilst endlessly folding
ladies’ scarves. He's in his wedding
gear, tearing the buttonhole flowers from his jacket and tossing it into the
mud by the loading dock. He marches over
to his forbidden shop-girl; she turns around and is swept off her feet into… one
of the conveniently placed stables, away from the prying eyes of the lower
classes. Oodles of bodice-ripping and poorly-tied-necktie-untying
ensues, and her heels are merrily bouncing off his bottom as they go for gold
in the straw. Moray's jilted bride turns
up and gasps, but then throws her veil over the nearest horse, hoists up her
skirts and joins in. Fade to black on
Moray's dimpled behind, as everyone continues having a jolly, jolly, jolly good
time.
Horror
Dudley, the assistant manager, comes into Moray's office,
telling his friend that it's time to go to the church. A close-up on Moray shows a twitch; he starts
screaming. Spinning around, he grabs a
desk chair, smashes it and stakes Dudley in the heart. Blood gushes all over Moray and his fine
wedding suit. The shouts bring in some
of the shop assistants, and Moray picks up his silver letter opener, breaks a
table, taking one of the legs as a club, and wildly bludgeons or stabs the
staff to death, (depending on which of his hands they are nearer to). Moving through the store, Moray stabs, bites,
claws and batters any person he comes across.
He stops briefly to hump the haberdashery counter, before running out to
the yard to find Denise. She spins
around in terror, as he charges at her with a broken crystal decanter from
glassware. Swiftly, she roundhouse kicks
him in the face. As he falls, she grabs
the decanter off him and stabs him repeatedly in the stomach and groin. Now that she is the embodiment of a
strong-willed woman who has been wronged by men, she goes up and down the
street, killing any man that looks at her funny. Coming across one-armed personnel director Jonas,
she cuts off his other arm, hitting him the soggy end. She is only stopped by Tiny Tim lookalike Arthur,
as he pushes her in front of the carriage bringing Moray's jilted bride from
the church in search of her missing bridegroom.
Scene fades on the blood dripping off the sharp edges of the decanter in
Denise's hands as she twitches in her death throes.
Slapstick Comedy
Dudley comes into Moray's office and promptly slips on a
banana skin.
Steam Punk (Or as Henry and I call it, ‘life’)
Moray grabs his steam-powered jet pack and runs to find
Denise. He finds her in the traders'
yard holding her magnificent steam-powered blunderbuss, and they hold onto each
as they take off and catch their steam-powered steamship from Newcastle and set
steam-powered sail for Somalia to kick some steam-powered pirate arse until
they die very rich and very happy, with lots of screaming steam-powered
great-grandchildren crowding their steamship.
Science Fiction
Very early on it is revealed that Moray’s bride-to-be, Lady Katherine
Glendenning (illustrated, above left), is actually a cyborg from the future intent on destroying all
human feeling in the world, because the consumerism of the future is greedily
feeding off innocent people due to The Paradise expanding so much, and Britain
is just a floating department store, with lingerie taking up most of
Wales. Kath-Bot is foiled by Denise, who
is revealed as a time-jumping policewoman, stopping cyborgs from changing fixed
points in time, of which the Notional-upon-Tyne haberdashery department of
Summer 1892 is naturally one of the most important. Moray sees Denise in her yellow and black
spandex of the future and promptly turns his back on all his principles to
time-jump with her and a pack of pygmy hippos.
Lady Katherine, having been permanently deactivated by Denise's phaser
taser laser gun, is sent to the scrap heap.
Jonas was really a giant weasel, but that is overshadowed by Arthur's
awesome ability to be incorrigible in the face of adversity, and the unveiling of
ladieswear manager Miss Audrey's secret collection of space monkeys. Chubby, lovelorn shopwalker Sam was also a
space monkey, but as usual no-one noticed.
Fade onto shop girl Clara's cutting sarcasm, which is really because her
teeth are made from Unobtainiumumumumumumumum.
Now that's how you write drama.
No comments:
Post a Comment