The Name of the Rose – TV for grown-ups

Perfectly timed for the darkening evenings and the spooky joys of Halloween, a new eight-part German-Italian adaptation of Umberto Eco’s medieval crime story, The Name of the Rose, has finally landed on UK TV screens.

The first episode, which screened on BBC2 last Friday and is now available on iPlayer, introduces us to novice monk Adso of Melk as he joins Franciscan friar William of Baskerville, who is walking through Italy to an isolated Benedictine abbey.

There, he is to take part in a theological debate between the Franciscan order and the papacy in Avignon over Christ’s attitude to poverty and riches. However, the pope and a member of the inquisition, Bernard Gui, are scheming to accuse the Franciscans of heresy and get rid of the order.

Then, when William and Adso arrive at the abbey, it is to find that one of the monks has died in mysterious circumstances.

The 1986 film with Sean Connery and F Murray Abraham helped bring Eco’s literary 1980 novel to a wider audience: it’s subsequently been adapted for the theatre and for radio – and has influenced a number of games – but this is the first television version.

What (approximately) eight hours over two promises is much more time for the development of the philosophical elements of the story, the scheming and the theological disagreements.

John Conroy’s cinematography ensures it looks beautiful, within and without, and it’s superbly lit.

The screenplay is a joint effort, from director Giacomo Battiato, together with Andrea Porporati and Nigel Williams, plus star John Turturro (who’s also a producer). Battiato’s direction is generally surefooted, although there are moments when dialogue is lost to mumbling – and that wasn’t even a good thing when Marlon Brando did it, claiming method.

Of the performances, Turturro’s William of Baskerville looks to be a delightfully nuanced reading, with the underlying sparkle and wit just kept in check, while Rupert Everett’s Gui – seen relatively briefly in the first episode – already seems a thoroughly unpleasant and oily character.

Michael Emerson’s abbot is also worth watching and Damian Hardung looks to be comfortable as the blank slate that is Adso: Peter Davison narrates as the elderly Adso and does so very well.

All in all, plenty to enjoy – and plenty to make one look forward to the second instalment. Catch up now – if you didn't see it last week – and look forward to this Friday. Sod ‘box sets’ – this is what TV is supposed to be.

• The Name of the Rose is at 9pm on Friday evenings, on BBC2