The fact that she is a likable journalist may require more of an imaginative leap for some, however.Ĭompleting the trio is Ibrahim Koma as Fogg’s valet, Passepartout, whose story shares near-equal billing with Fogg’s in the first episode, via the addition of an emotional fraternal reunion and a revolutionary subplot. The Crown’s Leonie Benesch (she played Prince Philip’s sister) portrays her with guts and gumption, as a woman trying to break into a man’s world and make a name for herself against the odds.Īnd why not? The book remains as it ever was, even if purists may grumble, and the character doesn’t seem crowbarred in. Detective Fix, Verne’s Scotland Yard policeman, has morphed into Abigail “Fix” Fortescue, a plucky gal reporter with a weekly column to fill and an unwilling subject – Fogg – about whom she has to write. Here, the charisma is shared among the three main characters, rather than hogged by Tennant alone. In the book, Fogg is fastidious and precise, but Tennant’s Fogg is more of a clumsy blunderer, at least to start with.
His ardour for the “balloon contraption” is his equivalent of the modern enthusiasm for the space rocket. He has a touch of the Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos about him the spectre of a wealthy man who needs a frivolous and history-making journey to feel alive again is familiar. He sulks in his mansion, he sulks in his club. Fogg is a dour, troubled rich man, ambling around in the trappings of his vast and mysterious wealth. Clearly, there is great confidence in it.Ī ‘clumsy blunderer’. This is a multinational production, showing off its many locations, and a second season has been confirmed before the first has even aired. Naturally, given its source material, it zips around the planet. The prolific composer Hans Zimmer has written the score, alongside Christian Lundberg. This is big television in the vein of His Dark Materials (and its gorgeous opening credits seem to have taken some inspiration from that series, as well as from Game of Thrones). Tennant promised a “romp” from this updated version of Jules Verne’s novel, and it certainly is lively. Off he goes, gathering up companions as if this is a 19th-century Doctor Who and getting himself into historical scrapes. After hearing of a new railway while dining at his private members’ club, Phileas Fogg (David Tennant, with moustache) accepts a bet that he can be the first man to travel around the globe in 80 days. That should mean there is more pleasure in quite literally watching the world go by, even if it takes a while to get going.
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