Poldark: More than Just a Pretty Face

OK. I admit it it. It’s all too easy to be distracted by the Grecian form of Aidan Turner; the brooding angst of his knitted brow and perfect cheekbones. But in all truth - Poldark is immensely popular - is that really the only reason why?

 I remember the original BBC Poldark with Robin Ellis and Angharad Rees. Yes, I was knee-high to a grasshopper, but that just goes to show what a whopping impact this TV drama had. Attracting 14 million viewers and supposedly charming entire church congregations away from evening worship, it was a sweeping romantic epic during one of the most austere periods of British postwar history.

Let’s put it into perspective. 

Between 1950 and 1975-1977,  when Poldark was broadcast, hundreds of coal mines in the North East and the West Midlands had closed due to declining production. We had a national shortage of coal compounded by the 1973 oil crisis which drove prices - and inflation - sky high. The shortage was so critical that the government opted for a three-day-week to ration the commercial use of electricity. 

One of the most vivid memories for those of us who were kids in the 70s is the power cuts. Yet, though the cosy intimacy of those candlelit evenings huddled around paraffin heaters sipping Bovril might stoke a rosy glow of nostalgia for the kids of that time, our dads were nervously working to rule in the shadow of the unions and mums were struggling to prepare hot meals after queuing for hours to get basic provisions.

Could it be that the abandoned tin mines of Poldark’s Cornwall struck with its audience as familiar? And how many viewers identified with those country folk huddled around frugal candlelit meals when, in those unreliable times foreshadowing the Winter of Discontent, they might any day expect to do the very same thing. 

Almost exactly two centuries before, in 1773, the Boston Tea Party tipped British imperialism into a dispute that erupted into the American Revolution. 

Why do I mention this? 

Because this is the struggle from which Captain Ross Poldark returns, to find his father dead, his heritage in jeopardy, his beloved in another’s arms. But no less significantly, in the latest BBC adaptation, Poldark returns no longer loyal to his nation’s agenda. He casts bitter aspersions on the rationale of war, and his sentiments echo Thomas Paine’s Common Sense: the cause of America is …the cause of all mankind.  He is a moral man at odds with the amoral climate that confronts him,  personified by scheming financiers who pick profit over people. 

As a war ‘hero’ he stands as part of the powers that be, but by disputing the legitimacy of this label, he puts himself at odds with the establishment and its forces, consequently garnering suspicion, contempt and violence.

As John Buell writes in his essay ‘Politics of Heroism’, if anyone today questions the heroism of soldiers, they are treated to a barrage of abuse and disdain, “Typical of right wing efforts to use such controversies as an opportunity to question the patriotism and morality of those who oppose [the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq]”. 

Centuries on, governments continue our involvement in wars we do not understand or agree with. And the rich and powerful are still squeezing those with the least to give. 

I believe Poldark may serve, yet again, to remind us of the economic subsidence created by our nation’s evolution from one of industry and manufacture to one of services and finance. Rents and house prices in the South East continue to rise at a mind-boggling rate. Banks, hedge-fund managers and private investors are the movers and shakers. Our pyramid of needs is peaked with tax-avoidance schemes and squats on a base of the food-bank fed. 

So, how we crave a hero like Ross Poldark! A man who gets his own hands dirty, who eschews bribes and money-lending sharks for real industry, a man who takes responsibility for his employees, and takes in those in need - not as charity, but as an opportunity to work for a living and gain independence. 

The Telegraph good-humouredly describes the new series as ‘glossy but empty headed’.  To be sure, I’m not suggesting that at face value it’s any more nuanced and many-layered than the contents of The Great British Bake-Off. However, it’s a mistake to dismiss anything as popular as this without looking more closely. 

The press may choose to joke over the catatonic wonderment brought about by Mr Turner’s stunning physique, but just what is it that lodges Ross Poldark so firmly into the public’s affections?  Is it merely his perfect pecs, or is it that deep down we recognise a hero who could save us from those who would beat us and cheat us?