Constance Chatterley, newly-married, looks a little apprehensive here, as though she can see into the future. The umpteenth adaptation of DH Lawrence's racy 1928 novel, which originally caused a sensation, a 1960s trial, and a comment about the material being unsuitable for one's servants, is here a 90-minute one-off. Within the first 15, Constance has met Clifford, fallen in love and married him; he's gone off to war and been seriously injured, while one of his men Mellors has survived both a mining disaster and the war and returned to find his wife pregnant by another man. It takes another 25 for Lady Chatterley to sneak off to the newly-appointed gamekeeper's shack for the sex she can no longer enjoy with her paralysed husband.
The best thing about this production is James Norton as Clifford Chatterley, cast against type as an impotent hero and sympathetically portrayed as a man bound by the expectations of his peers and upbringing. Holliday Grainger caught the voice and mannerisms of pampered Connie perfectly, but while she has 'a good face for period', and is around the right age, something about her doll-like features made her seem like a petulant child. The cleric who married her appeared to be about twelve also. Presumably the war didn't slaughter the nation's aged clerics to this degree? Richard Madden, as the earthy Oliver Mellors, bore an unfortunate passing resemblance to Peter Sutcliffe, aka the Yorkshire Ripper, which made it rather hard to understand his attraction.
Generally, the faults are those of the novel, i.e. the slow pace, the overblown melodrama and the giggly nature of the John Thomas references. It has something to say, rather heavy-handedly, about the changing nature of class in England after WWI, but in terms of personal choice, we couldn't help thinking that sex with Mellors would have to be amazing to compensate Lady C for the loss of about six sumptuous dresses and the huge dining table of Wragby Hall. It isn't as though there had been any hint of anything beyond the physical in their relationship, and until they were found out, Constance appeared content to have her beefcake and eat it. They drove off in the final scene, inexplicably in a posh Chatterley car, with an unborn Mellors waiting, but how long before the romance faded in the face of unplucked chickens, unpeeled vegetables and unwashed nappies?
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