Mary Webb - Dramatic Adaptations

Dramatic Adaptations

Gone to Earth is the story of Hazel Woodus, a child of nature with a pet fox who (that is, Hazel) simply wants to be herself, living among the remote Shropshire hills of the Welsh Marches with her harpist coffin-building father, but gets drawn into the world of normal human relationships through her great beauty, marrying a local church minister, but also becoming the object of the local fox-hunting squire's obsessive love for her. She casts herself down a mineshaft to escape, clutching her beloved fox. Gone to Earth was filmed in 1950 by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, starring Jennifer Jones as Hazel Woodus. However, it was later re-edited, shortened and retitled for its American release, and fell into relative obscurity. In 1985, the full 110-minute restored version was released by the National Film Archive, to great acclaim. A DVD is available.

Precious Bane is set in the years after the Battle of Waterloo, and tells the story of Prue Sarn, disfigured by a harelip which her superstitious neighbours regard as a sign that she is a witch, and how she falls in love with a visiting weaver, Kester Woodseaves. It was first produced as a six part BBC television drama series in 1957, starring Patrick Troughton and Daphne Slater. It was then adapted as a single play by French Television (ORTF) in 1968, with Dominique Labourier as Prue, Josep Maria Flotats as Gedeon and Pierre Vaneck as Kester; the director was Claude Santelli; the title was 'Sarn' (French title of the novel). TV channel TCM have shown this film several times in 2008. The most recent adaptation was as a television play by the BBC in 1989, with Janet McTeer as Prue, Clive Owen as her brother Gideon, and John Bowe as Kester.