Five Reasons Tom Jones Will Steal Your Heart
Will Tom Jones, the lowly born, impulsively amorous, and good-hearted hero of the new series Tom Jones steal your heart, as well as that of the story’s bright and beautiful heroine, Sophia Western? Yes! And here are five reasons why, according to Gwyneth Hughes, writer of the new classic romantic comedy based on the novel by Henry Fielding and airing April 30-May 21 on MASTERPIECE on PBS.
- 1.
Tom Jones—It's Not What You Might Think!
Some of you may be scratching your head, thinking this is a biopic of “What’s New, Pussycat?” crooner Tom Jones. Whereas some of you might be anticipating yet another take on an old story of a loveable rogue. But what screenwriter and Executive Producer Gwyneth Hughes found when she set out to adapt Henry Fielding’s 1749 novel was “the most fantastically funny, joyful, romantic escapade.”
Hughes’ adventure-filled, modern-feeling adaptation channels the novel’s optimism. “Fielding thought this was a marvelous world with marvelous people, and the young men and the young women were marvelous.” One such woman, heiress-next-door and Tom’s true love Sophia Western (Sophie Wilde), defies expectations. Hughes said, “You might think, ‘Oh, she’s going to be pink and fluffy and simple and awful, but she isn’t. She’s fantastically adventurous and feisty and sharp-witted. Sophia knows what she wants and she goes for it.” As for our hero, Hughes said, “Tom is an innocent, a child of nature, just the perfect young lad. He’s 19 years old, so of course he’s a bit of an idiot. Give him time to find his way to the real Tom, the adult Tom who he’s going to be.”
The net result? “It’s full of sunshine. Bad things happen, sad things happen—but not many!—and it’s just massively gorgeous and colorful and romantic.”
- 2.
It's the Original Rom-Com
When she first read Tom Jones, Hughes was surprised to discover that it was perhaps the first ever romantic comedy! According to Hughes, it hits all the classic romantic comedy beats: “There’s a lot of bad timing, where people arrive and see something they don’t understand, and people leave just before something important happens. And people change at different rates, so they fall out of love, fall back in love, at different times and in different places. And there’s a lot of comedic misunderstanding. Because otherwise, you would get there in five minutes, wouldn’t you? There’s got to be these challenges and misunderstandings and temptations to go in other directions.”
- 3.
Tom Jones is Funny
In her adaptation of Tom Jones, Hughes found endless humor in her source material. “It’s sort of wild, and English, and just what you’d be expecting of a great English classic, only jollier somehow, because it’s the 18th century. Some of the humor is quite broad. Henry Fielding was a dramatist, a stage man, so a lot of stuff is staged in a very funny way—pratfalls, people behaving like idiots. But there’s a lot of witty observational comedy as well, about what characters and families are like.”
And Hughes promised some rich high comedy to be had along Tom’s journey, “…particularly when he gets to London and starts mixing with these society ladies, the main one of whom is played brilliantly by Hannah Waddingham, who just picks this part up, the fox, and runs away with it!”
- 4.
It Found its Ideal Tom Jones, Solly McLeod
Finding the production’s leading man proved much harder than anticipated. Hughes described what they were looking for as, “He’s got to be absolutely gorgeous, only 19 or 20 years old, sunny, lovely, handsome, catnip to women, and also virtuous, and you’ve got to love him. Tom has to look like the village cricket captain.” They interviewed close to 100 young actors but none of them were Tom. “I just thought they all looked a bit angsty and a bit young and modern, and like they’d been up all night writing poetry.” But then they saw newcomer Solly McLeod’s tape and found their village cricket captain. According to Hughes, “He’s tall and handsome, but there’s an innocence to him, something about the way he is physically and the way he acts, wherein I buy that this is a lovely young fellow who just can’t quite get his act together, to grow up yet. And I said, ‘That’s it, that’s my Tom. Hire him.’”
- 5.
Tom Jones Stars Hannah Waddingham
When it came to casting the role of rich and influential seductress Lady Bellaston, the production needed someone ready to be vulnerable and exposed, even while acting villainous and behaving badly. They also needed someone very funny who would have to work hard to make the audience like them. Enter Hannah Waddingham (Ted Lasso)! “It’s a fantastic role, and she’s just jaw-droppingly good in it.” Hughes said. ” I think what Hannah liked was the bigness of it, the costumes and the sort of madness and sexiness of the whole thing. She loved all that, but she also liked the vulnerability side—she said that she’d taken the role because she liked the fact that we showed Lady Bellaston’s vulnerability. It was thrilling to get her, and she’s extraordinary. A goddess, really.”
