BBC Fairy Tales

On Thursday 10th the BBC started to show a series of modern versions of Fairytales. The first of these was Rapunzel. The adaptation told the tale of Jimmy Stojkovic, a failing male tennis player. Unknown to Jimmy, his father concocts a story about owing money to gangsters and the only way for them to get hold of the money is to disguise Jimmy as a woman and enter him into a women's tennis tournament.
As a woman, Jimmy manages to make it through to the fourth round where he has to take on Billy Jane Brook, the reigning champion. She is well known by the name of Rapunzel due to her long hair which her mother wont allow her to cut. The two get close and after Rapunzel helps Jimmy with his game they end up falling for each while Rapunzel still believes that Jimmy is a woman although she makes it quite clear that she isn't a lesbian.
Eventually the cat is let out of the bag on national TV after Jimmy wins the tournament and can no longer keep his secret from the one he loves. Rapunzel is horrified and storms off wanting nothing more to do with Jimmy.
A year later and due to the advice from Rapunzel Jimmy is doing extremely well now as a tennis player. After a match Jimmy has a chance meeting with Rapunzel again where they kiss and make up and presumably live happily ever after. Rapunzel's uptight mother and Jimmy's schemeing father also hit it off together and plan to train the two tennis stars together.

The classic hair climbing scene also makes an appearence of sorts as one night, while sleeping over at Rapunzel's, Jimmy creeps outside below Rapunzel's window as himself and watches as she lowers her hair. He can't quite reach and so calls up to her. Startled, Rapunzel quickly reels her hair back in and locks the window. She races back to her bedroom which Jimmy has quickly returned to (now as a woman) and tells of how a "rapist" had tried to attack her.

This was great fun to watch and next Thursday will tell the tale of Cinderella. This should be helpful to me for my dissertation as Cinderella is one of the stories that I am covering.