okay i have to talk about the canon clement books vs murder before evensong (the show) because the entire context is shifted by the casting. (contains book spoilers)
in the books, daniel is in his late forties (it's the late eighties/early nineties and he was born during wwii) and that's a major part of his character, and particularly his relationship with neil, who's fifteen years his junior. neil is a lapsed christian from the industrial north, and comes from a working class family, while daniel's family are southerners from relative wealth (daniel went to a private boarding school and did multiple degrees). this gives them a very specific dynamic - neil, as a police officer, is a figure of authority on the crime scene where they meet, but in all other aspects, daniel holds power over him. in later books, neil makes explicitly clear that the thing he wants from daniel is to renew his faith in christianity, because daniel is so faithful.
compare this to the show casting, where matthew lewis is YOUNGER than amit shah by eight years, completely removing that element from their relationship. it's pretty important in the books that neil is the first person in daniel's fifty-odd years who he's ever been attracted to, and that element (which is later used to argue that daniel doesn't really love him, he was just overwhelmed) is dampened by this casting. also, in the books, daniel is closer in age to bernard than to honoria and alex, which again, completely alters the dynamics at play.
shah is from london, while lewis is from leeds - they've literally flipped who's southern and who's northern. i don't think this was deliberate, as each of them is acting with the right accent for their book counterparts, EXCEPT. matthew lewis lets his northern accent slip through sometimes, particularly during scenes with audrey. this creates the implication that perhaps the clements actually are from the north, and that daniel was taught at some point to hide his accent. that is SO good when you consider that audrey is insistent on keeping up appearances of good breeding and financial comfort. of course she'd want her boys to act posher than they actually are! and again, this significantly alters the context of daniel and neil's relationship, because neil's status as a northerner and a policeman, both perceived as 'common' or lesser in some way. this affects his relationship with honoria and with the community at large. those northern roots being something he secretly shares with the clements??? literally so good
casting amit shah also opens up a whole can of worms. first, now all three de floures siblings are in relationships with people from minority ethnic groups, which just makes me imagine bernard's head catching fire. (this is assuming that neil and honoria's affair would be transferred into a theoretical series 2 or 3, which because of the changes to the plot and cast isn't by any means certain.) but also, he is now much more clearly demarcated as an outsider, and the northern element doesn't play anywhere near the role that it originally did.
i might have missed something, but as far as i can see, neil in the show is not indicated to have a christian upbringing of any kind, which is NUTS because in the books that's a huge motivator for his relationship with daniel. he repeatedly explains how his upbringing in an extreme christian denomination affected him, and his lost faith is the thing he attaches to daniel over. this is what multiple people misinterpret (?) as him falling for daniel, and represents a major theme for his character. by cutting it, the character completely changes. this kind of makes sense, because the show is WAY less christianity-centric (because not everybody is as interested in ecclesiastical minutiae as the literal reverend who wrote the books) and more of a generic murder mystery series. however, it totally uproots the apparent arc and motivation for neil across the series.
this is only really focusing on the details of neil and daniel's characters and how that informs their relationship, but it's a ripple effect. all the castings impact the overall story, which is to say nothing of the major changes made in the plot, tone, and pacing, often to the show's benefit. (the addition of the aids plotline? fucking amazing.) but it would be impossible to pick the story back up at the start of a death in the parish, because the context has already been changed so much as to irreparably shift the course of the plot.
anyway, this is barely comprehensible, but please watch murder before evensong and talk about it. a, because I NEED PEOPLE TO DISCUSS WITH and b, because i desperately want to see what else they have in store for these characters and themes.
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