Its title notwithstanding, Evelyn Waugh’s first novel has remained buoyant for nearly a century, as, sadly, has the stratum of society it satirises. In fact, thanks to erstwhile members D Cameron and B Johnson, Oxford’s Bullingdon Club, thinly disguised here as the Bollinger, is now almost as famous as that Champagne house.
Paul Pennyfeather, a studious scholarship boy de-bagged by drunken toffs and sent down, is also far from obsolete, but this adaptation is no skewering of the inconsiderate classes. Instead, it’s a boisterous romp, overacted at the pitch set by ‘Doctor Who’s Sylvester McCoy, whose miffed koala face and powerful growl are played entirely for laughs.
And laugh we do, at his drunken schoolteacher Grimes, and at the faithless Margot, spineless Prendergast and gormless Florence. Waugh packed his book with plot, and director Tom King skips us from one social gaffe to the next without pausing for censure or sympathy.
As in the original, scruples are a health hazard and breeding is equivalent of a get out of jail free card – or rather, a card ensuring the bearer never goes to jail at all. But there’s no bitterness: this is the dramatic equivalent of the Roman circus, with Pennyfeather as the lions’ afternoon tea.