Posh Nosh for All the Senses: The Riot Club and the stage-to-screen genre

I'd heard terrible things from a couple of friends, and the trailer seemed to encapsulate everything that is wrong with British cinema, national pride, and fraternity. This, I soon realised, was precisely the point. 

The Riot Club (Sam Claflin, Douglas Booth, and Max Irons), 2014

So, it's been a while since my last post, but recently I've been trying more and more new things, and suddenly the creative juices started to flow like never before.

On a dreary Saturday night, not long ago, I found myself at somewhat of a loose end. Scouring the local theatre listings left me cold - maybe because it was actually about -2 degrees in the flat - and nothing much else was going on (and I'm one of those sad people who hasn't yet plucked up the courage to go to the cinema alone - well, at least not on a Saturday night). So, for want of anything more original to do, I settled in, cracked open a bottle of modestly priced, but perfectly drinkable Pinot Noir, and splashed out on a good old-fashioned film rental, courtesy of Blinkbox. My choice? Not one I would have expected, but in the end, I went for The Riot Club; Lone Scherfig's screen adaptation of Laura Wade's Posh (the screenplay was also written by Wade).

Now, the less said about Scherfig's previous endeavour, One Day, the better, but I was a huge fan of An Education, so I was willing to give this consequent coming-of-age, unmistakably British Film 4 collaboration a bash. I won't lie - I wasn't expecting to like, or even finish it. I'd heard terrible things from a couple of friends, and the trailer seemed to encapsulate everything that is wrong with British cinema, national pride, and fraternity. This, I soon realised, was precisely the point.

Now, I do apologise to anyone who genuinely found the film offensive, excessive, or generally hard to watch - I do understand why. Perhaps I've just watched too much Game of Thrones and studied the likes of Sarah Kane, Mark Ravenhill and Co. for too long, but I liked it. I'll admit, other than touching upon it briefly during Contemporary British Theatre in third year, I'm not terribly familiar with Posh, but Wade and Scherfig's adaptation for the screen did sit very well with me indeed. My favourite part by far is - spoiler alert? - when one of the characters is being mugged and, having been told "Enter the PIN number" by his attackers, cannot resist interjecting "Actually, it's just PIN".

I thought the film was well acted and well staged; the soundtrack fitted perfectly, and the casting was spot on. The reason it struck a chord with me so profoundly ties in exactly with what I've just said - staged. This film really got me thinking about plays that have been turned into films. Of course, there have been thousands of them, but I think it's a rare skill for a writer and/or director to be able to make that transition as smoothly as Wade and Scherfig have managed it with The Riot Club. I can imagine this film on the stage as clearly as it's on the screen in front of me - and, at the same time, had I not known its origins, I wouldn't have guessed. What's most remarkable is how few changes seem to have been made stylistically.

The difference between cinema and theatre is all in the dialogue. Would you know what on earth was going on were it not for the characters' conversations? No? In that case, you're probably watching a play. Cinema can go on for half an hour or more without anyone saying a word; there are montages, passage of time, an entire music video sometimes - even newspaper headlines flashing all over the place to let you know where you are and what's happening. Theatre - not so much. And that's why I love the stage-to-screen genre so much. In The Riot Club, you almost see the pages of the script turning as we flick from scene to scene. You witness Miles and Alistair's relationship unfold through their heated History tutorial debates; the social politics between the privately and state educated through recurrent discussions in the college bar. You can almost feel where the interval falls.

The plot is episodic and measured - language and dialogue very much drive this film, and bar the odd gratuitous love-making sequence, the director steers clear of indulgent visuals and drawn-out close-ups. We see this often - in The History Boys, for example (not that I'd welcome the comparison between Wade and Bennett), as well as Quills and Amadeus. The talking and the acting just don't stop and I, for one, can't get enough of it.

Use your words, film-makers; great things can happen when you simply pick up a script and read.