Around the World
in Eighty Days
by Jules Verne, dramatized by Terry James (1991). Dir. Janet Whittaker. Perf. Leslie Phillips, Jim Broadbent, Diana
Quick. BBC Radio 4 Extra, 19-22 Jun.
2017.
After
listening to this colorful dramatization of the Verne classic, I understood the
novel’s debt to classic picaresque adventures such as Don Quixote. Phineas Fogg
(Leslie Phillips) and Passepartout (Yves Aubert) are the Quixote and Sancho
Panza figures, while Princess Aouda (Diana Quick) is Dulcinea. Sergeant Fix (Jim Broadbent) is the classic
fly in the ointment, pursuing Fogg worldwide but failing to arrest him, despite
valiant efforts to obtain a warrant to do so.
In
truth the story of pure hokum, dramatizing late Victorian English attitudes to
other countries with wry humor. Verne
conceived Fogg as a curious middle-aged man of the confirmed bachelor variety,
apparently indifferent to everything and everyone and obsessed with the idea of
arriving in different ports on time. It
does not matter whether he is in India, Hong Kong, or the United States; he
believes that everything can be bought and sold for his benefit. In the modern era he might be perceived as a
classic supporter of the current government.
Leslie Phillips plays him with Rex Harrison-like suavity, but his air of
nonchalance is abruptly disturbed by Aouda’s presence. To his evident astonishment Fogg discovers
that he has amorous feelings for her; and the two finish the adaptation by marrying. So much for the ice-cool Englishman.
Passepartout
is played by Aubert as a rubber-ball like figure, whose capacity to overcome
adversity is apparently limitless. Some
of his adventures are explicitly comic (such as when he joins a group of Chinese
acrobats to make money), but he remains faithful to his “Master” throughout,
even though he finds some of Fogg’s mannerisms distinctly eccentric. A French author looks at the English, and
considers them very strange.
Janet
Whittaker’s production advances through two parallel narratives, delivered
directly to listeners by Passepartout and Fix.
Passepartout keeps a journal; Fix his police officer’s notebook. When these two documents are used as material
to keep the ship’s engine going on the final trip back from New York to
Liverpool, Princess Aouda takes over the narration. The technique of direct address helps us to
understand the characters’ attitudes to what seems a ludicrous
undertaking. Despite Fogg’s
inexhaustible energy, the idea of traveling the world in eighty days seems
preposterous. It is a tribute to the
characters’ resilience that the three narratives gradually alter in tone, as
Passepartout and Fix realize that the feat will be completed, whatever the
cost.
The
four parts are constructed as a series of picaresque episodes linked with
electronic music from Wılfredo Acosta that gives an otherworldly atmosphere to
the production. The attitudes and social
mores might be explicitly Victorian, but the tale is a wish-fulfillment
fantasy, a testament to human ingenuity and to three indomitable spirits.
