The Durrells in Corfu Sequel
With the recent end of The Durrells (or The Durrells in Corfu, as it’s known when it airs in the US on Masterpiece), I was struck by the idea that there should be a sequel. I don’t often have such a thought, as I tend to be lukewarm towards most sequels, but a few ideas presented themselves. Admittedly some of them involve the members of the Durrell family, others would be loose adaptations of books that Gerry and Larry Durrell wrote, and others simply period pieces.
A wartime drama on the homefront as mom and Gerry and others return to the UK and try to go to school and make ends meet and deal with various crises in wartime. Adjusting to life in dreary bleak England after years in Greece. Gerald Durrell wrote about this period in Fillets of Place, but of course the series would expand upon it. Stepanides’ wife and daughter stayed with the Durrells in Bournemouth during the war, fleeing London like so many others.
Lawrence and Nancy. While the Durrell family left Corfu for England in 1939, Larry and his wife stayed. Their daughter was born in 1940 and in 1941 when Greece fell to the Axis, they fled via Crete to Egypt.
Reflections on a Marine Venus. In 1945-47, Lawrence Durrell was posted to Rhodes. He stayed there with his second wife, and he wrote a lyrical book about the island that barely touches on the war. It’s a celebration of the place and the people, perhaps informed by the fact that he had just written a book about his time spent on Corfu (Prospero’s Cell). The series would explore rebuilding after the war and the chaos as Rhodes had been part of the Ottoman Empire, was taken by the Italians, then held by the Germans. The British took control before handing it over to Greece, which was in the midst of a civil war. A portrait of difficult, complicated times that would also be about something beautiful, something transcendent that can survive in such times.
The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. It’s completely unfilmable. Prove me wrong!
The Avignon Quintet by Lawrence Durrell. Even more unfilmable. Come on. Who wants a challenge?
Beasts in my Bed or Menagerie Manor. After the war Gerry was involved in organizing expeditions and working with various zoos, even as he took issue with how zoos and conservation programs were run. He believed that zoos should serve a purpose, for breeding endangered species and to educate the public, and that they shouldn’t exist as entertainment. Durrell also managed to amass a large collection of animals who were not ultimately bought by zoos and so he tended to them himself. Imagine a domestic comedy where instead of children, it’s a large menagerie of animals? Or, Doctor Doolittle where the animals don’t talk back. Durrell and his then wife both wrote about his period.
Jersey Zoological Park. Another possibility would be a look at how Durrell planned and organized his own zoo, going against how they were organized at the time, though for many contemporary viewers, they sound both thoughtful and relatively commonplace today. It would be about a man balancing his work and passion with his life, a marriage that is strained, his efforts to educate people about a new way to see the world and consider animals. All done in a refurbished manor house on the island of Jersey. Also partly a look at and celebration of the Channel islands. Think about the joy and care taken to considering Corfu.
Theodore Stephanides. One of the stars of The Durrells, the show just hints at the truly remarkable life that he lived. A veteran of WWI, he served as a doctor in WW2, and went on to write at length about the Battle of Crete. He was a translator and a poet who wrote and published in both Greek and English. There are three species named after him and he wrote the definitive treatise of freshwater animals in Corfu in addition to books about the microscope, fiction about the Greek isles.
A new adaptation of Olivia Manning’s The Fortunes of War. The six book saga of a British couple during World War II was originally made into a TV miniseries in the late 1980’s with a then unknown Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh, but I think a new adaptation is in order. The three books known as the Balkan Trilogy tell the story of a British couple in Romania just as the war has broken out, who are then forced to flee to Greece and then to Egypt, to stay one step ahead of the German invasion. A fascinating look at the expatriate community, about refugees, and one of the supporting characters, Prince Yakimov, is one of my very favorite characters in all of contemporary literature.
Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor. In 1933, a teenage Fermor took the boat from England to Holland, and set out to walk to Constantinople. Which he eventually reached, and spent years in Europe before returning to England after the outbreak of World War II. The book, covering the first third of his journey, is a book of such energy and youthful passion, but told from the perspective of a much older man. Fermor sleeps rough one night and then stays in a castle the next, traveling through towns and villages, meeting all sorts of people’s and witnessing many things that in just a few years would come to an end.
I keep thinking of a version of the Durrells done in rotoscoping would be great. And Steve Barron, who directed 9 episodes including the first and the last, if of course the man behind the legendary music video for a-ha’s Take on Me.
Keeley Hawes reading the phone book. She could do that for two hours and it would be more interesting than most movies that came out last year.
