Tom Jones is back — younger, sweeter, but still a sexy rascal

Tom Jones is back, still young and frisky and fond of the ladies.
This is the 18th-century rascal (not the rock singer) of movie fame. He still has a vigorous sex life – but it’s not as loose and lusty as people might remember. Did we mention that this is on PBS?
Fresh from Jane Austen’s chaste world, “Masterpiece Theatre” starts “Tom Jones” (shown here) at 9 p.m. Sunday (April 30). Suzanne Simpson, the “Masterpiece” chief, calls it “a big-hearted love story.”
But isn’t this the same story that was a bawdy, box-office hit and Oscar-winner in 1963? Yes, Gwyneth Hughes told the Television Critics Association, but there’s a difference.
In the novel, she said, Tom is 20. “He’s a bit of an idiot, as one is at 20.”
In the movie, he was played by Albert Finney, who was 27, but seemed older; in other versions, the stars were 26 and 31. Now the role goes to Solly McLeod, who is 23, with a face ready for teen roles.
“The minute you start to approach 30, Tom’s behavior starts to be a big: ‘ewww, what!?!’” Hughes said. We see him making “silly, daft, 20-year-old’s decisions, and it’s hard to forgive him.”
But this Tom, the sweet Solly one, seems instantly forgivable. When he’s entangled with a scheming seductress (played by Hannah Waddingham, 48, of “Ted Lasso”), he seems sort of innocent.
An orphan baby found on a doorstep, Tom was raised with love and kindness, but no money or station in life. Unable to marry Sophie (who had both), he wanders into adventures, many of them sexual.
Still, there’s a lightness to his occasional success and his frequent bumbling. For “Masterpiece” viewers – accustomed to serious tales stretching over eight or more weeks – this is different.
“I loved the fact that it’s a four-part series that is just something people can enjoy – completely, utterly,” Simpson said.
Henry Fielding’s novel isn’t into brevity; it’s close to 1,000 pages. But Fielding was definitely into fun.
One of his first prose pieces to be published was “On the Benefit of Laughing.” As a playwright, he was fond of satire – to his own detriment: After he staged two pieces mocking the government, Parliament passed a bill that shut down his theater company.
Fielding also had his serious side, even spending his final years as a crusading magistrate. Still, comedy was his fallback position. After his wife’s death death in 1744, Fielding – in his late 30s, with five children – began writing this tale of a frivolous lad.
It’s a story of misbehavior in an unfair era, Hughes (no relation to this writer) granted. “Boys have always been able to get away with more than girls. That’s life. That’s history. This is the 18th century we’re talking about.”
Still, old English tales are popular with modern women. Sophie Wilde, who plays Sophia (shown here with McLeod), recalled seeing “Pride and Prejudice” on TV at 7. “I fell completely in love with period pieces.”
And McLeod? “Those period dramas and things like that weren’t something that I really watched a lot,” he said. He saw a few pirate tales, but none of the character-driven stories.
He also knew nothing about “Tom Jones,” as a novel or a movie. “I didn’t even know it existed …. When I got the audition for it, I thought it was (to play) the singer Tom Jones.”
That would have been a problem. “I can’t do a Welsh accent. I don’t look like him. I was like: ‘Why have I been sent this?’”
That was during a pandemic-time blitz. McLeod did two episodes of “House of the Dragon” – as Joffrey, who was beaten to death at the wedding of his gay lover – and seven of “The Rising,” while auditioning via Zoom for this one. “All the auditions were done from ill-lit hotel rooms,” Hughes said.
McLeod arrived at the last minute and met Wilde, who would play his true love. “I got off the plane in Belfast,” he said. “We went to the pub and had some pints and we were like, ‘It’s going to be all right.’”