I recommend that any lesbian and anyone who loves good fiction, add BOTH the book and the DVD of TIPPING THE VELVET to their bookshelves. They are all wonderfully talented - well, except for the singing and dancing, perhaps - and, moreover, their physical presences are so much what the mind's eye sees when reading the novel before seeing the film. One quick comment about the four actors who essay the primary roles. And I preferred way the novel let Nan 'come of age' than the way Davies chose. But I really think that author Waters' final nod to the rose symbol was much more interesting. As the screenplay was plotted by Davies, the denouement was inevitable and appropriate. I also would take issue with his use of the book's primary symbol, the rose.

But Davies missed a half-dozen moments that are so excruciatingly, painfully tender which he could have incorporated if his sensibility were more feminine. Reviewers have offered the most praise for Tipping the Velvets use of humour, adventure, and sexual explicitness. I certainly enjoyed those, on film as in the book. Sarah Waters debut novel, Tipping the Velvet was highly acclaimed and was chosen by The New York Times and The Library Journal as one of the best books of 1998. She becomes instantly and desperately enamoured with a 'masher', or male impersonator, named Kitty Butler, who performs for a season at the local theatre. Davies, as he admits in the commentary that accompanies the film on DVD, wanted particularly to emphasis the more scatological bits in the book. Nancy 'Nan' Astley is a sheltered 18-year-old living with her working-class family and helping in their oyster restaurant in Whitstable, Kent. I realize that Davies is a very good adapter, but I wish the producers had chosen a woman to write the screenplay. But, still, it's often hard to read the original material after a film gives away the best parts. I know that one must view a novel and a film as different media and judge them accordingly. I'm glad I read (twice) the book first which is usually the case for me. To tip the lion to flatten a man's nose with the thumb, and, at the same time to extend his mouth, with the fingers, thereby giving him a sort of lion-like countenauce. I think Andrew Davies did an admirable job of taking a magnificent book which emulated the pace and styling of a Victorian novel and turning it into a moving and entertaining film.

Tipping the velvet