It’s been a while since PBS’ Masterpiece has lived up to its billing by tackling, or revisiting, a true literary classic. (Overextending Jane Austen’s unfinished novel Sanditon doesn’t count.)
So while Henry Fielding’s 18th-century coming-of-age tome retains some mild shock value in its frisky particulars, writer Gwyneth Hughes’ brisk four-part adaptation — a welcome respite from the bloat of so many overlong streaming series — nestles perhaps too snugly in the Masterpiece costume-drama comfort zone. (The Oscar-winning 1963 film version starring Albert Finney is livelier.)
(Credit: Courtesy of Mammoth Screen and MASTERPIECE)
An age-appropriate Solly McLeod is quite charming, if a trifle bland, as Tom Jones’ title character, a foundling bastard raised by a kindly squire whose generosity of spirit he inherits despite his low birth. “Can a man ever be a gentleman who doesn’t know who his father is?” frets Tom, seemingly unaware that he’s more noble of manner at the age of 20 than most of the snobbish gentry and manipulative sirens whose paths he crosses.
Besotted with the beautiful heiress Sophia (Sophie Wilde), who’s reimagined as the mixed-race offspring of a Jamaican slave, Tom keeps being led down seductive paths of potential ruin. (Lucy Fallon and Susannah Fielding are amusing as two of his more willing conquests, although it’s rarely clear who’s conquering who.) His most memorable and dangerous game of bedroom farce occurs when he falls under the predatory gaze of Sophia’s high-haired gorgon of an aunt, the ghoulishly garish hedonist Lady Bellaston (Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham, camping it up).
The road to the inevitable “love conquers all” happy ending is strewn with melodramatic treachery — James Wilbraham is perfectly hissable as Tom’s resentful cousin William Blifil — and lamentable misunderstandings, befitting a picaresque tale that may have invented many of the clichés we associate with modern romcoms. As dashing heroes go, Tom Jones really got around.
Tom Jones, Limited Series Premiere, Sunday, April 30, 9/8c, PBS
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