Ballet Shoes

I watched BBC's Ballet Shoes on Boxing Day. I had to - Ballet Shoes was a major part of my childhood, as I suspect it was for many girls growing up in the 50s and early 60s. The cast looked good, with reliable performers such as Victoria Wood, Emilia Fox, Harriet Walter, the peerless Eileen Atkins, and the impressive and highly promising Marc Warren.
None of them disappointed, and the young actresses who played the Fossil girls were well-directed. The costumes and scenery were meticulously realised, and the accents were better than usual. The older generation, of course, were fine, but Fox and Warren did very well indeed, and the girls who played the Fossil sisters did as well as could have been expected.
My main gripe, though was the changes to the story. I realise that some had to be made, but these were tiresome. Warren played Mr Smith, a single gentlemen lodger who runs a garage - in the book, Mr and Mrs Smith are a couple. This allowed the creation of a spurious love interest for Sylvia, the girls' guardian, and we had to have a ridiculous wedding scene at the end. In the book Sylvia remains single, accompanying Pauline to Hollywood, but this was clearly unacceptable for TV controllers. Sigh......
I got my Puffin edition of the book out from my shelf of children's books (I never throw anything away!) and had a look. It's an incredibly matter-of-fact book, with few flights of fancy. It's based firmly on everyday life with enough wish-fulfilment to satisfy. For me, it was as fantastical as Harry Potter is to today's generation, bearing no relation to my life whatsoever. yet it was the descriptions of everyday life that I relished most. I do think reality is unnecessary for a great children's book and I devoured Streatfield's stories of girls (they were all girls) achieving stardom against the odds, reading them over and over again.
The production truncated a great deal, as I suppose it had to, but it was an enjoyable way to spend 90 minutes, though it's 9.00 start was clearly aimed at 50-somethings who knew the book. I can't imagine it would grab any of today's 12-year-olds - but who knows?