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1[[quoteright:257:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/8c27306309d28b51e066c1651718baf17978ed16.jpg]]
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3Andrew Wynford Davies (born 20 September 1936) is a Welsh screenwriter most widely known for his screen adaptations of novels, which includes a lot of CostumeDrama as well as more contemporary works. For much of his adult life, he taught literature, his students including a young Sue Birtwistle, who would later produce his scripting of the famous 1995 BBC ''Series/PrideAndPrejudice''. Though he was active in television starting in the 1960s, his career really took off in the 1990s with his adaptation of the political thriller ''Series/{{House Of Cards|UK}}'', which was so popular that [[RetCanon it influenced the book's sequels]].
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5Davies has said that Creator/JaneAusten is his favorite author, and has adapted four of her six novels for television, starting with ''Series/{{Pride and Prejudice|1995}}'' for the BBC in 1995, riding the immense wave of popularity into a much shorter and more controversial ITV ''Film/{{Emma}}'' the next year, then returning to Austen in 2007 and 2008 with ITV's ''Film/NorthangerAbbey'' and the BBC's ''Series/SenseAndSensibility'', respectively. Other famous adaptations include two of Creator/GeorgeEliot's novels, ''Series/{{Middlemarch}}'' (1994) and ''Series/DanielDeronda'' (2002), two landmark eight-hour Creator/CharlesDickens half-hour soap-opera style serials, ''Series/BleakHouse'' (2005) and ''Series/LittleDorrit'' (2008), and two Creator/AnthonyTrollope novels, ''Series/TheWayWeLiveNow'' (2001) and ''Series/HeKnewHeWasRight'' (2004).
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7His work in Hollywood is a mixed bag -- he enjoys the larger sums of money involved, but dislikes the lack of power the screenwriter has. Though the ''Film/BridgetJones'' films are relatively well-liked, he was vocal about the problematic process of adapting ''Film/BridesheadRevisited'', and was not the final writer on that project.
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9His career often finds him collaborating with talent which later finds enormous recognition, such as Creator/ColinFirth (''Pride and Prejudice''), Creator/KateBeckinsale, Creator/MarkStrong, Creator/OliviaWilliams, and Samantha Morton (''Emma''), Creator/CareyMulligan (''Bleak House'' and ''Northanger Abbey''), Creator/TomHooper (director of ''Film/TheKingsSpeech'' - directed ''Daniel Deronda''), Creator/DavidYates (directed ''The Way We Live Now''), Creator/MirandaOtto, Creator/CillianMurphy, and Matthew Macfadyen (''The Way We Live Now''), etc.
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11Davies' own original work includes the TV series ''Series/AVeryPeculiarPractice'' and (for younger audiences) ''[[Series/MarmaladeAtkins Educating Marmalade]]'' and ''Series/AlfonsoBonzo''.
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13!!Works by Andrew Davies with their own trope pages include:
14* ''Series/{{House Of Cards|UK}}'' (lists tropes for both the novels and the television adaptations of the series)
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16!!Other works by Andrew Davies provide examples of:
17* AwkwardlyPlacedBathtub
18* DirectLineToTheAuthor: The book version of ''Alfonso Bonzo'' has an afterword reproducing a letter Alfonso Bonzo supposedly sent to the publisher, complaining that it's a defamatory misrepresentation.
19* FramingDevice: The television version of ''Alfonso Bonzo'' has the protagonist, laid up in hospital, passing time by telling the man in the next bed about his encounters with the title character.
20* HotterAndSexier: Davies' primary preoccupation in most of his adaptations, notably in his additions of "wet t-shirt scenes" to ''Series/PrideAndPrejudice'' and ''Series/SenseAndSensibility'', the opening of the latter miniseries with an actual sex scene, adding sex scenes to ''Film/ARoomWithAView'', making Miss Wade a lesbian in ''Series/LittleDorrit'', etc, etc. Notably averted in ''Series/FannyHill'', which is actually less pornographic than the 18th century novel.
21* MundaneMadeAwesome: His attempt to capitalize on the wet shirt appeal from the 1995 ''Pride and Prejudice'' (which he wrote) in his adaptation of ''Sense and Sensibility''. Despite a bit of a shout out to a previous scene to give structural importance, the wood-chopping-in-the-rain scene comes off a merely awkward instead of erotic.
22* PantsFree
23* PoirotSpeak: Alfonso Bonzo
24* SexySoakedShirt: His most famous work, the 1995 ''Series/PrideAndPrejudice'', features Colin Firth swimming in a lake and then walking about in a sopping white shirt. Later, his 2008 adaptation of ''Series/SenseAndSensibility'' does the same, though to significantly less successful effect. Oddly enough, Davies claims that in both cases he was intending actual nudity, and the addition of the shirt was a fortuitous coincidence.
25* TelevisionPortal: One of Alfonso Bonzo's strange possessions is a television with a button that transforms it into a portal to whatever's on the screen.
26* WriterOnBoard: Known primarily for his adaptations, particularly of famous British classic novels. Claims Creator/JaneAusten is his favorite author, and has adapted four of her six major completed novels for British television. In general, has great admiration for the classics except for one small...well, not so small point: he believes in bringing out the sex whenever applicable (and occasionally, depending on perspective, when not applicable).

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