D.H. Lawrence’s classic tale of desire, scandal, betrayal and war has been adapted once more for the BBC. The BBC released a mini-series adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover in 1993 starring Joely Richardson and Sean Bean and now another Game of Thrones favourite Richard Madden is taking on the role of the dashing gamekeeper Oliver Mellors.
The new adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover is written and directed by Jed Mercurio and stars Holliday Grainger as Lady Chatterley, Richard Madden as Oliver Mellors and James Norton as Sir Clifford Chatterley. When Connie Chatterley’s husband returns from the war crippled and impotent, she soon feels isolated by the dull intellectuals that occupy her home and begins an affair with her young gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors.
When D.H Lawrence’s novel was first published in 1928, it was met with outrage by critics and readers alike due to its explicit sexual content that led to it being censored for thirty years. However, contemporary critics suggest that the controversy was less to do with the sexual content and more to do with its depiction of a romance between a noble woman and a working class man. The divide between social classes, that gripped English society of the time, is a major theme in Lawrence’s novel, but it is still the sexual descriptions that spark the most debate.
In the months prior to its release, Jed Mercurio’s latest adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover has divided opinions. The Telegraph has stated “the passion will be soft-focus and almost all the book’s sexual language will be absent” whilst The Sun claims it is “so steamy it borders on porn”. Whichever of these quotes is true, I suppose there is only one way to find out. If you missed Lady Chatterley’s Lover that aired on BBC1 at 9pm on Sunday, September 6, be sure to catch up on BBC iPlayer!
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