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Around the World in 80 Days stars David Tennant as world explorer-to-be Phileas Fogg, and he’s offered a wager of £20,000, which is half his fortune, and the cash equivalent today being almost £2m.
In order to adapt to current woke culture, Inspector Fix is now female and a journalist (Leonie Benesch plays Abigail ‘Fix’ Fortescue – occasionally arguing with her Dad, played by Jason Watkins), and Fogg’s French valet, Passepartout, is now black and played by Ibrahim Koma.
Early on, Fogg receives a postcard with the word ‘coward’ on it, and gets incredibly upset. He must have a very thin skin. It’s a bit like someone on Twitter calling you a ‘big silly’. Meanwhile, once the trip gets underway, Fogg literally loses his shirt on arrival in France, when all his luggage is stolen, but that just made me angry. I would happily knock them the fuck right out!
As for Passepartout, he meets up with his brother in France who, together with a rag-tag bunch of idiots, claim they’re going to assassinate the President of France, yet they don’t even look like they could butter toast without injuring themselves on the knife.
As for the outcomes to any potentially difficult situations, this is hardly The Usual Suspects in terms of plotting.
Richard Wilson briefly pops up as Fogg’s butler, Grayson, and it’s nice to see him, but there’s not much to the appearance.
For me, the problem is that it’s all so old fashioned. The version that sticks in the mind is the 1956 movie with David Niven which runs for almost three hours, but based on what I’ve seen so far with the first two episodes, this 2021 version is just boring. It does nothing new that makes me want to see how things turn out… even though I know the outcome already.
Around The World In 80 Days begins with two episodes back-to-back on Boxing Day on BBC1 at 5.50pm.
For the first four episodes, after each episode is broadcast, they will be on the BBC iPlayer. After that, the entire series will be online. The series is not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Episodes 1 and 2: Boring and cliched.
Series Directors: Steve Barron, Brian Kelly, Charles Beeson
Producer: Peter McAleese
Creators: Caleb Ranson, Ashley Pharoah
Novel: Jules Verne
Writers: Stephen Greenhorn, Peter McKenna, Debbie O’Malley, Ashley Pharoah, Claire Downs, Ian Jarvis, Stuart Lane, Jessica Ruston
Music: Christian Lundberg, Hans Zimmer
Cast:
Phileas Fogg: David Tennant
Passepartout: Ibrahim Koma
Abigail ‘Fix’ Fortescue: Leonie Benesch
Nyle Bellamy: Peter Sullivan
Bernard Fortescue: Jason Watkins
Thomas Kneedling: Anthony Flanagan
Roberts: Leon Clingman
Samuel Fellentin: David Sherwood
Aouda: Shivaani Ghai
Grayson: Richard Wilson
Estella: Dolly Wells
Lady Clemency Rowbotham: Victoria Smurfit
Jane Digby: Lindsay Duncan
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.