When news broke, some months ago, that a new TV adaptation of EF Benson’s Mapp and Lucia books was to be broadcast this Christmas a mighty dread seized the minds of all Bensonites, me included. The general feeling was that the books shouldn’t be messed with lightly – and should only ever be touched by brilliant types like us, who really “got it”.
For those not yet acquainted with the Mapp and Lucia novels, written between 1920 and 1939, they are delicious send-ups of the snobbish cultural lives of upper-middle-class people in interwar Britain. Amid endless musical evenings and ridiculous mannered luncheons we watch social rivals Miss Mapp and Lucia vie with each other to become Queen of Tilling-on-Sea. The books are as fabulously plotted and as funny as PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster books or his Blandings novels.
As if the books weren’t enough to worry about, there is also the near-perfect Channel 4 series (1985) with the blissful cast of Prunella Scales, Geraldine McEwen and Nigel Hawthorne, whose memory should be revered and certainly not messed with.
However, being of an open-minded disposition, dismay slowly turned to intrigue when it emerged that the new series was written by Steve Pemberton (who, it turns out, is a true Bensonite and very much “gets it”). Intrigue turned to optimism when I heard Mapp was to be played by Miranda Richardson and Lucia by Anna Chancellor. And, when it was revealed that Pemberton and Mark Gatiss would also be in it, I let myself settle into guarded excitement.
Now, having seen a preview of the first of three hour-long episodes, I can tell you it’s marvellous – and a credit to the great man. Pemberton (Georgie Pilson) and Gatiss (Major Flint) are as funny and charming as they should be. Richardson’s Mapp is spookily close to that of Scales and very good as a result. But it is Chancellor who stands out. It’s not that she’s a better Lucia than McEwen, it’s just that she’s so different (stronger, calmer) and perhaps closer to the Lucia of Benson’s imagination. Plan your week around it.
• Mapp and Lucia is on BBC1 29-31 December.
