12/03/2010

RA FRIDAY - A FASCINATING RASCAL

(Lee Richards in Cold Feet)

Tell me, honestly, would you resist him? Look at his gaze and smile... Could you actually deny anything to this charming rascal ? 

And what about this one?
(John Mulligan in "Drowning not waving")

I've been working hard (tough job!)  this week on imagining Richard as protean Robert  Lovelace. Mutable, versatile, untrustworthy , treacherous, vain, but handsome, fascinating, enchanting, attractive, manly, sexy… irresistible. Except your name is ...  Clarissa Harlowe! One of the  most feminist/puritan heroine in literature.  She rejected him! Anyhow, poor  creature,  it's not her fault. Sanctimonious Richardson created her like that. And her stubborness (sex phobia?) ruined the two of them: Lovelace and herself.

I’m so sure Richard will do an excellent job. He will give Lovelace new life and new charm. Are you ready to listen to BBC 4 radio drama based on Samuel Richardson's CLARISSA? Next Sunday afternoon at 3 p. m. (Greenwich time) You can listen to it online at
I can't wait and I've been studying hard to be ready. I've taken this task on very seriously. I've read several of the  letters in the novel  (not the entire book... three books indeed!) and found my old uni notes to recall what I studied. I've read some reviews and essays. But ... the most interesting thing was watching BBC 1991 Clarissa starring Sean Bean and Saskia Wickham.



I went on substituting RA's voice to Mr Bean's  voice all the time and what an emotion ... certain scenes were even more thrilling! Do you want to try yourself? Here you are.What if Richard played this passionate scene?





Phew! Such a tragic story! Sentimental and even melodramatic in Richardson’s epistolary novel. Better conveyed, with less redundancy, in the TV adaptation.

Such a perfect puritan heroine  meets an unscrupolous  libertine on her path. She sees him as the only means to escape from a her family’s prison , from the disgusting Mr Solmes, the man her family has  chosen as her husband. But, then Lovelace becomes her new gaoler. He wants her at any cost, he tricks and deceives her. What a pity! Maybe she could have loved him if only he didn’t betray her, stirred by his flesh, his uncontrollable desire to possess that “angel”.
Impossible not to take a liking to Lovelace and reproach him at the same time. It's impossible to like Clarissa  much:  too perfect, too naive, too good. But one must sympathize with her in her misfortune. She is generous and disinterested and she wilfully renounces her grandfather’s inheritance in favour of her father and brother. She’s always been obedient and dutiful but there is one thing she can never renounce: her independence. Never.

Lovelace and Clarissa are tragic lovers, as tragic as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to me. Watching or reading their story you are there wishing... "if only"... all the time.


And now ... guess who?


Do you recognize her? A clue? She is Hannah Howe, Clarissa's best friend in the novel.

Yeah! Hermione Norris, Ros Myers in Spooks. Much better now than in 1991, isn't she?

Eagerly waiting for Richard's Lovelace!

Meanwhile ... incredibly ...other news! Lots of news!
Richard's must sleep very little, amazing man!

1. A new voiceover for a documentary about posh schools
"Too poor for Posh School"? on Channel 4 March 11th

2. A new Georgette Heyer's audiobook read by Richard
will be released on August 2nd

3. Filming Spooks 9 (first photos on set)

4. No Charlie for Richard. Who has lost more? Mike Ogden, of course!
I'm disappointed, though. Do you remember my enthusiasm?

Many thanks to Annette for keeping us all so well updated thanks to her hard work at www.richardarmitageonline.com
and to the ladies at C19 who are incredibly active!
Last, but indeed first and not at all least, to my fairy Merryweather for her support and proactive help!

AVAILABLE SOURCES

CLARISSA ON LINE
Why Lovelace must die
I shall enter her heart
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1 comment:

Unknown said...

I've just finished watching the BBC mini: it's really a good adaptation, although it didn't succeed in making Clarissa's character more likeable... to me, at least. It's a gripping story, quite unsettling at times, and very, very sad. Getting curious about Mr Lovelace's character - guess why? ;-) - I've followed some of the links you've supplied at the end of your post. I suspected there was more than a simple likeness between this 'vilain' and LLD's Valmont: in fact, Laclos was inspired by Lovelace, but despite appearences the two men are very different from each other.
I would have loved to see/hear Richard as Valmont, but listening to him as Lovelace might be enough for a greedy girl such as I am ;-)
Thank you for posting those breathtaking pictures of RAscal RA, can't take my eyes off of him!
xx K

14 March 2010 at 15:23

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