Twenty-First Century Television

This essay analyses the use of soap opera modes in Dickens television adaptations since the success of Bleak House (BBC/WGBH, d: Justin Chadwick, Susanna White) in 2005. It argues that this move involves more than serialisation and defines three markers which link these adaptations to soap opera: moral legibility as a narrative principle; emotional legibility involving the communication of emotion; and the handling of contemporary social issues. The article illustrates how these markers are used in three BBC co-productions: Oliver Twist (BBC/WGBH, d: Coky Giedroyc, 2007), Little Dorrit (BBC/WGBH, d: Adam Smith, Dearbhla Walsh, Diarmuid Lawrence, 2008), and Great Expectations (BBC/Masterpiece, d: Brian Kirk, 2011). This move towards soap’s melodramatic modes fitted the BBC’s Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) requirement to appeal to popular audiences, as well as to US co-producers, such as Masterpiece, looking for more spectacular classics. The essay concludes with a discussion of the issue of diversity and integrated casting – a distinctive feature of these post-2005 adaptations – and offers an analysis of The Mystery of Edwin Drood (BBC/Masterpiece, d: Diarmuid Lawrence, 2012), an adaptation which eschewed the soap opera influence but which subversively challenged the all-white landscape of the classic adaptation.