The radio goes on at 7:a.m., Radio 4, and the Today programme wakes us up to bring us news of what’s happened and happening in the world. We eventually go downstairs and the radio goes on and we follow Radio 4 into the rest of the day’s programmes. On Thursdays at the moment, it’s ‘In Our Time’ and the topic last week was
“Fielding’s Tom Jones”
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss “The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling” (1749) by Henry Fielding (1707-1754), one of the most influential of the early English novels and a favourite of Dickens. Coleridge wrote that it had one of the ‘three most perfect plots ever planned’. Fielding had made his name in the theatre with satirical plays that were so painful for their targets in government that, from then until the 1960s, plays required approval before being staged; seeking other ways to make a living, Fielding turned to law and to fiction. ‘Tom Jones’ is one of the great comic novels, with the tightness of a farce and the ambition of a Greek epic as told by the finest raconteur. While other authors might present Tom as a rake and a libertine, Fielding makes him the hero for his fundamental good nature, so offering a caution not to judge anyone too soon, if ever.
It was a fascinating programme and I guess many people would only know of Tom Jones the singer and not the character from this great book. I studied it for my degree – but I’m not sure I could read it now, however, I enjoyed it then. Henry Fielding was an astonishing writer, so influential, but he had an equally remarkable brother.
Henry’s half-brother John, was an extraordinary man. He was born in 1721, fourteen years after Henry, and he always had poor eyesight; tragically, an operation which was meant to help the condition, blinded him completely. However, such was the character of John that he helped his brother set up what was essentially the first modern, professional police force, The Bow Street Runners. He later became magistrate at Bow Street and was known as ‘the Blind Beak’.
The reason I know about John is that I used to watch an excellent drama series based on actual events, starring Ian Glen as John, and Ian McDiarmid as Henry. It was a great series, and I was surprised a second didn’t follow as it won several awards.
The show uses authentic historical research to tell the story of the two men battling to create a police force, 75 years before Robert Peel founded the Metropolitan Police. Henry Fielding’s memoirs and contemporary sources such as the Old Bailey Sessions Papers have been used to provide historical accuracy to the series, whilst other historical figures… appear as characters. The series uses innovative mapping sequences to follow the narrative and characters’ progress, wherein John Rocque’s map of 1746 is seen from above, becomes firstly 3D and ultimately merges with film sequences of the next scene to pick up the narrative tale.
If you’re interested, here is a link to the rest of the Wikipedia page:
Lois Elsden 