The Mayor of Casterbridge

This column was first published in the Age on December 13, 2003

Thomas Hardy's characters have the grand failings of Shakespeare, but unlike Shakespeare, there is no humour or wise fool to break the relentless intensity. This makes Michael Henchard, The Mayor of Casterbridge, a depressing chap. If Christmas is a time of year that fills you with a sense of gloom The Mayor of Casterbridge (ABC, this Sunday and next, 8.30pm) may be the show you need to fuel your mood.

The world of the original novel, and thus this series, is a bleak one and more primitive than the mid-1800s setting would suggest. In this pretty, rural landscape, men die of grief and women are killed by shame. Nature and fate hang heavy over people's lives - so heavy you can hardy blame them for their flaws: Henchard's drinking, Farfrae's arrogance, Lucetta's floundering and manipulations.

Michael Henchard's fall from grace occurs when, in a drunken fit of pique, he auctions off his wife and daughter at a village fair. This is the moment where lies and secrets are born, the moment his life can never recover from. At first, though, it seems the making of him: once he sobers up he swears not to touch alcohol for 21 years and puts all his energy into hard work, becoming a rich man and a respected Mayor. It is also the moment that brands Elizabeth Jane, who may or may not be his daughter, as a woman destined for a life of angst, vulnerability and confused paternity.

The sometimes-compelling Jodhi May plays Elizabeth Jane, but while she looks beautiful and intense in this role, she doesn't actually convey much. Ciaran Hinds is, as he should be, both loveable and awful as the Mayor, though many viewers will have a soft spot for Alan Bates in the 1978 version of this series. That version was less abridged which made some nonsensical moments stronger but drew out the suffering interminably.

Hardy's work is intellectually rich and the auction at the heart of Henchard's story is based on record Hardy found of just such an event. He explores how women are at men's mercy, both for their good name, and economically - but goes further than that to suggest that men are also oppressed by such a system. They are prey to the guilt such responsibility engenders, especially when handled clumsily. They are also isolated by their obsession with property and the notion of what is, or isn't, 'rightfully' theirs - a mindset that means that true love, the kind given freely, often eludes them, or is found too late.

When The Mayor of Casterbridge was published in 1886 it's relatively open discussions of both men and women's sexual desire was pretty radical stuff. In a testimony to the novel's timelessness, its social analysis still packs a punch today - and, as an added bonus, you can put down when it gets too much. On television subtlety is lost, implausibility is underlined and the earnest sense of inevitability makes this series hard going. But, it is rewarding stuff if you can sit through until the end.

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