ITV's four-part television drama Tom Jones reimagines Henry Fielding's 1749 novel The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling
Sunday: Tom Jones (ITV1, 10.20pm & 11.20pm)
If you saw the title of the new four-part period drama Tom Jones and assumed it was a biopic of the Welsh singer, you’re not alone – even leading man Solly McLeod made the same mistake.
He says: “I was working on a job up in Manchester. The audition came through for ‘Tom Jones’ and I thought, ‘I don’t look a thing like Tom Jones. I can’t even do a Welsh accent…’ Then I read it, and it wasn’t that Tom Jones.”
Instead, it’s based on Henry Fielding’s 1749 novel The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling. There have been many adaptations over the centuries, including an 18th-century opera by François-André Philidor, an Oscar-winning 1963 film, a 1997 BBC series starring Max Beesley, and a 21st-century jukebox musical, What’s New Pussycat, which moved the action to the 1960s and featured the songs of the other Tom Jones.
Once he’d cleared up his initial confusion, Solly decided to go back to the original source. Or at least that was plan…
The actor, whose previous credits include The Rising and House of the Dragon, says: “I went out and bought the novel, a nice hardback, got about three chapters in… and I didn’t have a clue what was going on! So, I just used Gwyneth’s Hughes’s brilliant script as reference to give me what I needed to get in to character.”
It’s the story of a young man who was abandoned as a baby, only to be rescued and adopted by kindly country gentleman Squire Allworthy (James Fleet). Tom grows up to be a charming free spirit, but he cannot escape his lowly birth.
So, when he falls for wealthy heiress Sophia Western (Sophie Wilde), their families disapprove of the match and Tom is banished to London. Can he find a way to prove himself worthy of the woman he loves, especially when the big city holds so many temptations for a handsome young man with an eye for the ladies?
While he may be lacking in self-discipline, Tom is essentially an enthusiastic, well-meaning character – and Solly admits that can sometimes be more challenging to play than an out-and-out villain.
He explains: “It was a lot of work and I’d be tired and then you’d get people shouting at me across
the set saying, ‘Just smile a bit more please!’ ‘Open your eyes!’ I’m a cheery person I hope - if I’ve had enough sleep. The thing is it has been rare to get that in the last year. But in the end, it’s been very enjoyable.”
Solly also found some common ground with Tom. “Even though it’s not contemporary and a very different experience to my own I’ve looked at the parts of his life that I can relate to. Him being a young man, trying to figure out what’s right, what’s wrong.”
He adds: “This Tom Jones is quite a different kind of period drama. There’s a realness to it, and there’s humanity, I think. A lot of period dramas are quite serious: this one has comedy and emotion and peril added in to make it feel really different.”