Our Friends in Time: A look at A Dance to the Music of Time and Our Friends in the North
By Will Barber Taylor
Often, stories that captivate us the most are ones that seem to sum up an era. We often describe Victorian drama or the era in general as being “Dickensian” because of how often Dickens summed up the times that he lived in. Elizabethan and Shakespearean often seem almost interchangeable, the Bard of Avon truly seems to be the spirit of his age.
Yet, with the rise of television and the proliferation of drama that seems topical it is difficult to pinpoint what could be seen as being representative of our “age”. It is, however, easier to pinpoint what can be representative of time gone by — an era that is over is one we can view objectively without being unsure as to how it ends or what impact it will have because we are living through it.
Therefore, it is easier to look at the twentieth century and what could be considered to sum it up than the 21st century which has only entered its third decade. Two television dramas that perhaps best sum up the 20th century are Our Friends in the North and A Dance To The Music of Time. Of course, Dance is an adaptation so it should be stressed that when referring to it and making comparison between it and Our Friends in the North, I will be referring to the adaptation which differs in length and scope to the cycle of novels.
Dance and Our Friends are different in many ways, but they are also similar in some keyways. They follow a groups of friends (the term may be strained somewhat in regards to Dance) through some of the key events of the 20th century — in the case of Dance it is the early to mid-twentieth century with Our Friends picking up the baton and chronicling the lives of our protagonists from 1964 to 1996. Both series have point of view characters through whom we see the narrative unfolding; both ironically have similar names.
They are, however, in many ways different — Nick Jenkins (Dance) is, if anything, a passive protagonist and one who does not cause most of the events he witnesses to happen. He is, like the Victorian tradition of the central character being a passive recorder of events, essentially representative of the audience. Nicky Hutchinson (Our Friends) in contrast is a proactive protagonist and many of his actions directly impact the course of the plot. He is also a character, who unlike Nick Jenkins, whilst being an everyman is one who makes mistakes; Jenkins is in many ways an inoffensive presence in the series whilst Nicky can often make selfish and pig-headed decisions that he lives to regret.
Our Friends has the deeper political arc of following the Labour Party between two crucial dawns; its return to power under Wilson and just prior to the 1997 landslide. Politics and indeed the Labour Party itself is at the heart of the series; not only are most of the central characters involved in the Labour Party in one way or another, the attitudes and actions of the party directly affect characters’ development.
In contrast, Dance to the Music of Time does not have one single party at its core; both the Conservative and Labour Party’s are mentioned, however, they are peripheral to the characters’ central motivation. Rather Dance represents the changing of society through the decline and fall of the “ruling class” and the rise of the middle class, represented by Widmerpool. Whilst in Our Friends, the litmus test for the changing of society is the way our characters change in contrast in Dance, Widmerpool’s advance through society and the slow destruction of those who belittled him.
Widmerpool is a representation of the transformation of society from one in which class is the defining feature to one in which practicality is it. Like Ronald Merrick in Paul Scott’s Raja quartet, Widmerpool may be a functionary and viewed as repellent by his social betters but they desperately need him. The fact that no such figure exists in Our Friends in the North not only suggests that by the time of Our Friends’ production that characters like Widmerpool are no longer seen as realistic or necessary to tell a story of transformation. Both Widmerpool and Merrick are late examples of the Victorian tradition of the villainous “necessary men.” Usually of an “inferior class” to the main characters of the novels or novels, they perform duties exceptionally well and highlight the inadequacies of their supposed betters. They are particularly apparent in the work of Dickens, most noticeable being Uriah Heep in David Copperfield. They are usually depicted as the antagonist of the novel though both in the case of Merrick and Widmerpool with a greater deal of sympathy than Dickens’ portrayal of the grasping Heep or Hardy’s Farfrae in The Mayor of Casterbridge (though in Farfrae’s case he may be viewed as an inversion of this type of character, given his status in relation to Henchard).
Yet the absence of a Widmerpool like figure in Our Friends in the North is also partly thanks to the views both take towards society. In Our Friends in The North, corruption is, in essence the major social evil. Nicky experiences it whilst working for Austin Donahue; Toscar and Mary encounter it through Donahue’s flats and Geordie’s life is defined by it due to his work for the villainous Benny Barratt. This corruption weaves its way into the mainstream of politics and serves as a reminder of its corruption. For most of the characters in Our Friends in the North nothing changes because the institutions are corrupt; the Labour Party may fight for change, but it is unable to truly instigate that change whilst Donahue and others allow corrupt practises to flourish.
In Dance To The Music Of Time it is not the institutions that are seemingly corrupt but the others that wish to engender change; rather than the establishment being the problem it is Widmerpool and all he represents that is the root of corruption and folly. Yet, in both works it is the realisation that such corruption exists that drives our central characters. This is more evident in Our Friends with Nicky’s confused and desperate desire to seek some pure cause to campaign for, to rekindle in himself the passion he felt when fighting for Civil Rights in America, than it is in Dance.
However, it is still there in Dance. Nick Jenkins resistance to working for Widmerpool during the War is evidence of his desire to fight against being a part of Widmerpool’s corrupt machinations. It must be stressed however that Widmerpool’s corruption is that of moral corruption rather than the financial corruption Donahue engages in with Edwards. This demonstrates one of the inherent differences between Dance and Our Friends; in Our Friends the corruption is from the system whereas in Dance it is the way that the system is being changed.
With both series, the underlying seemingly unstoppable pace of change is key to understanding why they are so compelling. Whilst the viewer knows the outcome of the 1974 General Election or the 1926 General Strike, the way the characters interact with these events draw us in and allows us to feel as if they are new and accessible.
These are not dry or remote acts or experiences — they are real and all-encompassing events that we can feel as lost in as our central characters. Through drama even more so than through history can we experience decade defining events in a way that truly transfixes; how much more inspiring is seeing Hal’s final battle with Harry Hotspur at culmination of Henry IV Part 1 than learning the date of the Battle of Shrewsbury? Or reading Cromwell’s thoughts as he sends Ann Boleyn to her death in Bring Up The Bodies — a depiction that has such weight to it and emotional heft that it is far more memorable that turgidly repeating the “Divorced, Beheaded, Died” song. This is not to decry academic or even amateur history — I would be a hypocrite if I attempted to do so — rather it is an explanation as to why both Dance and Our Friends are such engaging works of fiction. They can in a way far more vivid than any sparse accounting of time recount the emotions and inner spirit of an age and allow the person reading or listening or viewing them to become at one with a period that is not their own.
Whilst it may be justifiable to criticise the adaptation of Dance for not being as fulsome as the cycle of books on which it is based, both Our Friends in the North and A Dance to The Music of Time fully and comprehensively engage in the spirit of an age, albeit from different angles and different class perspectives. Both series provide unique insight into the past and create characters that are not just brilliant on their own terms but are superb as representations of their own era. Both Nicky Hutchinson and Kenneth Widmerpool are terrific characters, but they also allow us to imagine what the soul of an era would be like if it were a person. It is this inherent ability to transport us that makes both series not only so memorable but also so valuable. In a time when the way we view our lives and circumstances and in which we live them are so skewed, these cultural touchstones are more important than ever.
