Memoirs of a Private Man (27 page)

It's a wonderful remark and should be studied by us all.

The reason the BBC gave for their lack of enthusiasm when the further books were eventually written was that they did not wish to repeat old successes. The new executives wanted to make their own impression on the screen, not to seem to be copying their predecessors.

Even so, there have been any number of attempts to continue the series on TV. In 1981 Robin Clark, who had inherited London Films together with a large fortune from his father Robert Clark, bought an option on the next three novels (with a fourth promised to follow). He paid handsomely for a twelve-month option, and immediately gave a large cocktail party to mark the event and invited all the old cast and a number of top BBC executives. At this party not one representative of the BBC turned up.

Nevertheless he went ahead and invested considerable funds in the preliminaries of a production. At the end of the year he felt he had made some progress, so bought another year's option. During this second period he brought in two experienced producers to work on the production, particularly to estimate its costing. He also published a glossy booklet advertising his intentions and listing the number of countries in which the previous series had been shown and with handsome pictures of scenes from
Poldark One
and
Two
. When the second year was up he took still one more option – this of six months. But nothing he could do could persuade the BBC to move an inch.

During this period there had been stirrings in the commercial network too, and when the Clark option finally expired, John Edwards, a freelance entrepreneur, paid a similar large sum for a further twelve months' option. Nothing came of this either, but Edwards continued to have faith in the books, so I gave him a further option – this time free – to run for another year.

In the meantime Robin Ellis (Ross Poldark) had read the by-now four unfilmed
Poldark
novels and was very enthusiastic about their potential as a continuation – or climax – of the saga. He discussed it with one of his friends, Jackie Stoller, herself a distinguished TV producer, and in early 1992 they approached me telling me of their plans for getting a film mounted and asking me for a twelve-month option, another free one. John Edwards' second option had now expired, so I gladly agreed to this. Between them, I thought they would produce an admirable series.

The last
Poldark
novel,
The Twisted Sword
, had been published in 1990, and it seemed that despite the big gap of time which had passed since the end of the two TV series, interest in
Poldark
had seldom been greater.

After early 1992 when this last option was granted, nothing material happened for a long time. I was in touch with Robin, who kept me appraised of the situation; but by the time the year was up there had not been any real progress. They therefore asked for another year's option, which I again gladly granted them.

Towards the end of the second year I was approached yet again by John Edwards, who by now had interested HTV in the
Poldarks
– or perhaps more correctly reactivated their interest – and he said they would consider taking an option themselves. When the property became free at the end of Robin and Jackie's second year I agreed with John Edwards that he should have a free option for
six weeks
only. This was greatly to the disappointment of Robin and Jackie, but I thought such a short option could hardly do any harm.

At the end of the six weeks, HTV said they were prepared to buy a year's option, paying less than a third of what Robin Clark had paid, but it was definitely an earnest of their interest.

The rest (as they say) is history. HTV took up the option and announced a production due to start in May 1995. This, following the new fashion, was to be a two-hour film based on the eighth
Poldark
novel,
The Stranger from the Sea
, and if this was as successful as everyone expected, it was to be followed (at an interval) by the three remaining novels in twelve hourly instalments, rather on the BBC model. The actors in the two previous series were all approached, and all the main actors were delighted to accept the offer to play their old parts. (The exception was Ralph Bates, who had played George Warleggan in the previous series – one of the most charming of men – and whose untimely death we all mourned.)

I was recovering from a minor operation, and one Tuesday all the main participants in the HTV production came to lunch with me at my home. John Edwards, Stephen Matthews, Geraint Morris, Sally Haynes. They could not have been more charming or more enthusiastic, and they left me with a feeling of happy anticipation.

Except that I had urged them to change the format, making four one-hour episodes of the book. The
Poldark
novels are not written for blockbuster films, they seem ideally made, however accidentally, for a long-running serial. I was assured that HTV could do nothing whatsoever about this. It was a condition imposed by the ITV moguls, who had got this idea from America and who made it a condition of providing the finance that it should be made in this form.

The one important person missing from our luncheon was the scriptwriter, who they said was too busy on the adaptation to attend. They said she played over one of the old TV tapes each day before beginning work on the new book.

In the meantime while we waited – and waited – all was optimism among the old cast. Robin went daily to the gym to reduce his weight and get in trim. Angharad glowed rosily at the prospect of portraying the part of Demelza which she had made triumphantly her own. My own enquiries to HTV of Sally Haynes, who was to produce the film, were met with reassurances that the script had had some amendments but had now gone back for the final polishing.

At length – very late – it came, with production scheduled to begin in a month's time. There was just time enough to go full steam ahead. When I read the script I was once again shattered and deeply affronted. The scriptwriter apparently had felt free to use my characters but almost to write a different story. Or if the bones of the story were adhered to the flesh had completely changed. Important incidents in the book were totally omitted, important incidents which were not in the book were inserted. It didn't read right, it wouldn't speak right. Any resemblance to the ‘ feel' of the novels was coincidental. I rang up Sally Haynes and told her it was an insult. It just wouldn't do. Fortunately Stephen Matthews, the executive in charge, didn't like it either.

So the script was thrown out, and after a pause another scriptwriter,
equally unknown
, was engaged. This meant that the whole rumbling mechanism of production was brought to a stop, at great cost, and a new date, in September, four months hence, was chosen. At this stage John Edwards, whose role was now only supervisory, wrote a treatment which kept closely to the book while paring off inessentials. Robin and Angharad went to see Geraint Morris and Sally Haynes, and they beat out together a rough idea of how the film should be approached. If only it had happened three months earlier, we thought – and if it was adhered to – it would have saved all the trouble.

But it was not, in the outcome, adhered to at all. Sally, a talented young woman, but a person of great obstinacy, had her own ideas: she had engaged an unknown director called Richard Laxton, and as the summer went on she more and more leaned towards the idea of featuring only Robin and Angharad and otherwise making a clean sweep of the earlier cast. Technicians who had worked on the BBC production, and who had been provisionally signed up to begin in May, were told that they would no longer be needed in September.

By this time I had become aware of a curious dichotomy in HTV's approach. As a group they could not have been more eager, enthusiastic and determined to make this into a resounding success. I remember Sally saying excitedly to me once: ‘Won't it be wonderful to see Robin and Angharad reunited on the screen again after all these years!' There was no question in her mind, in anyone's mind, that they should not play.

But underneath the enthusiasm was a total blind ignorance of what
Poldark
was really all about. Even before the two series on television there must have been many thousands of people all over the country able to answer all their questions and to correct all their misapprehensions. After the TV series it must have been numbered in millions.

Yet there was this
enthusiasm
, there was this
commitment. Nothing
was going to be too expensive or too much trouble to ensure that the new production was as good as, or better than, the old.

And unlike certain people who might try to sit in judgement on HTV, I have a long memory. I remember the total ignorance of the BBC when it all began in 1975. They had the first four novels, which a lot of people had read, and many hadn't. The great saving grace, then, was that it went on week after week regardless, and they learned in the process. By the end of Episode 4 things were changing. This may have been partly because of my raging disgust at the first scripts; partly, I believe the actors created a spell along with the story that gradually worked for all.

So when the
second
script came along from HTV, the entirely new script by an entirely new writer, I was delighted and relieved by the enormous improvement this showed. Remembering the awful travesty of the first four episodes that Jack Pulman produced for the BBC, this was not to be gagged at. I accepted it in its entirety, hoping that when it came down to the ultimate shooting script, minor and gently insinuated criticisms could iron out the too obvious faults.

I understood from all I heard that the top brass at HTV approved the new script, also that Robin and Angharad liked it, and I felt happy that at last this big expensive new project was about to go on the road.

In July I went on holiday with my daughter, Rosamund. We drove (in great heat) to Geneva and from there took the short flight to Nice and stayed at the Hôtel Metropole, Beaulieu. Then a week or so later we returned by air and car (in great heat) to England. We had been away less than three weeks, but in that period things had turned very sour. On the last day of the month Robin rang me to say he was withdrawing from the production.

It is not easy to relate the sequence of events which had led him to take this drastic step. Before I went away I knew there were certain elements in the second script that he did not like (and I entirely agreed with him) but, as I have said, I believed that these would be ironed out in the course of ordinary consultation. The official reason for the complete break was that the sums offered to him and Angharad for six weeks' work on the film just weren't enough. But I have never believed this was the whole of the story. It was probably the last straw.

Robin and Angharad had always believed that their participation in the next
Poldark
on TV was an absolute essential. They had created these two characters on screen from the characters in my novels. For weeks and months in the Seventies they had worked together, projecting themselves into these two eighteenth-century people, thinking and feeling like them. They had themselves been as close as lovers (which I don't believe they ever were), consulting, arguing, agreeing, working with the relevant director (and sometimes against him). They had presented these characters to the world, they had travelled together, to Spain, to America, etc., perpetuating the image and the dream.

They had been feted everywhere; twenty-two countries knew them. After the furore of the Seventies and early Eighties things must have begun to quieten down. The excitement was subsiding. Then in 1981 the BBC had reluctantly decided to show the series again – at the mildly insane time of 5.30 p.m. on Mondays. It had nevertheless roused much new interest, and out of this new excitement the Poldark Appreciation Society was born. Founded by Val Adams, it had rapidly grown in membership and at the annual luncheons, to which the stars and I were invited, there were people from all over the world. I greatly appreciated the warmth and admiration with which I was treated, but the largest number of admirers quite naturally centred on Robin and Angharad. I was the author, but they were actors, both young people with great charm and good looks, and they were the centre of the main attention. I fully approved of this, but it may have added to Robin and Angharad's impression, their conviction, that the new series stood or fell by their approval, that they were totally irreplaceable.

Most people, including me, felt they were. Not so the TV company. In their enthusiasm and eagerness to put on a fine series, they took it for granted that Robin and Angharad would be the stars; but they, the TV company, had to be in charge. With infinite error they had chosen an executive producer, a producer and a director, and – for the second time – a writer, the last three of whom were untried and certainly had no
real
knowledge of what
Poldark
meant. They all
wanted
the participation and the help of Robin and Angharad, but it was to be an ITV production and
they
were putting up the money and
they
intended to be in the saddle.

In the matter of the money the two stars were offered £30,000 each for six weeks' work, with pro-rata payment if the time was exceeded. HTV assured me, rightly or wrongly, that their offer was the top rate that was paid to TV stars. They were well aware that in the hard cold light of the TV world neither Robin nor Angharad had continued their fame by appearing in other comparable productions in the eighteen years that had passed.

When this offer was refused there was consternation at HTV and it looked as if the production might founder for a second time – and this time for good. The big people with the big money in the TV world were appealed to, were adamant that the top salaries offered was all there was to offer. So at an emergency meeting at HTV a package was contrived – for which later they were sternly reprimanded – whereby the two stars in addition to their salaries should each receive a percentage of the profits. This was also turned down.