With social unrest brewing in France and Emmanuel Macron accused by protesters of being the “president of the rich”, the BBC is to air an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s historical novel Les Misérables, which the writer Andrew Davies says has been given a timely “contemporary relevance” by the injustices and divisions within society today.
The BBC has brought Hugo’s novel “right into the 21st century”, according to its director general, Tony Hall, with one of its most “inclusive casts” ever.
But Davies (who penned the famous BBC adaptations of Pride and Prejudice and War & Peace, and true to form has a scene in Les Misérables in which Dominic West’s character, Jean Valjean, bares his bottom) has also highlighted the divisions laid out in Hugo’s epic story about revolutionary France in the 19th century, which he says reflect the current alarming gap between rich and poor. “It’s got a kind of obvious contemporary relevance,” said Davies during a preview screening of the BBC One drama in London.
“It was hard to come along to this place today without seeing people sitting in the rain begging. We live in a society that’s really as divided into rich and poor as the society that Hugo was talking about. It often seems that a lot of people like Fantine [played by Lily Collins] don’t really have solid ground to stand on. If something goes wrong they are on the street. It’s alarming.”
With the BBC keen to ensure more diverse cast and crew are used, Les Misérables has colour-blind casting and features the Silent Witness actor Liz Carr, who is disabled.
David Oyelowo, who stars as Valjean’s pursuer, Javert, said: “The really radical thing that we’ve been doing is to take a 150-year-old novel and transpose it on to English life. The reason to do that is to make that relevant to the wide audience we want to speak to. So in relation to the casting it’s just an extension of that. We live in a society that looks like this, so therefore to make a 150-year-old novel feel like it’s relevant to everyone here you want to see yourself in it.”
Although the BBC’s adaptation features background artists speaking in French, to highlight class division the stars speak in various British accents, with West adopting a northern twang.
The director, Tom Shankland, explained the reasoning: “The novel is … about a very divided society in France, so as we were making this for an English-language audience I think you’re missing a trick if you don’t speak to that audience in a language they understand.
“There are class divisions which we perceive on the basis of accents, so the simplest rule that we found was really to nod towards those rules that we have in our own divided society.”
Although many viewers will know Les Misérables from the West End musical and Hollywood’s version starring Russell Crowe, the BBC’s adaptation features no musical numbers and instead goes back to Hugo’s classic.
Davies – who adapted the acclaimed original BBC version of House of Cards and shot to fame after featuring Colin Firth as a dripping Mr Darcy emerging from a lake in Pride and Prejudice – is known for highlighting nuances in classical literature to give his dramas new appeal.
In addition to the appearance of West’s bottom, which Shankland confirmed was the actor’s and not a body double’s, Davies said he thought Javert pursued his former captor and “he may possibly even be in love with him in a strange way”.
Les Miséables starts on BBC One on 30 December.
