(BBC Radio 4), 29 Dec 25 - 4Jan 26

It's strangely discordant when a classic adventure story opens with a discussion about whether an American Indian should be referred to as a creature or called by his name, Magua. Minutes later a 'paleskinned man' comes into view which I guess is a polite step back from being a paleface.

Yes it's The Last of the Mohicans, but not as we know it.

The BBC commissioned a reinterpretation on the 200th anniversary of this tale of the Wild Frontier and they clearly laid down some very specific parameters. Out goes tension, danger and pursuit and in comes lectures about Colonial oppression, environmental stewardship and the nobility of the humanitarian native.

Personally I'd prefer the snap of twigs underfoot, breathless flight, the crack of gunfire. James Fenimore Cooper's novel, for all its flaws, throws vulnerable travellers into hostile territory during wartime, establishing stakes and momentum from the outset.

So what is going on here? The BBC's own press release gives the game away: according to the Corporation the novel is "widely discredited" and rarely read today because of its "melodramatic stereotyping" and "historical inaccuracy."

Some of this is fair. It's right to note that the Mohicans weren't dying out as the story implies and their descendants are very much alive today. It's valid to elevate the female character Cora from bystander to a more central role. And Cooper's conflation of distinct tribes deserved correction. The story itself is straightforward enough: two sisters travelling to their father's fort during the French and Indian War, guided by a treacherous Huron named Magua, must be rescued by Hawkeye—a white frontiersman raised by Mohicans—and his Native companions. It's a tale of pursuit, betrayal and frontier violence.

Native American Bradley Lewis as Magua, Jay Rincon of Mexican descent as Uncas, and mixed heritage British actor Leonnie Elliott as Cora do their best, but they're handicapped by stilted dialogue and a lack of momentum.

It’s more like a lecture with sound effects than drama. As expert John Yorke observed in Radio 4's Opening Lines programme introducing the broadcast, the novel has been "praised, ridiculed, loved, despised and cancelled but never forgotten." Yorke, former BBC Controller of Drama Production, takes a measured view: Cooper tried to capture frontier realities and often demonstrated admiration for Native Americans. The book embodies fundamental questions about American identity—race, culture, belonging.

Views have long diverged—Cooper was ridiculed by Mark Twain but lionised by D.H. Lawrence. As radio historian Professor Tim Crook observes, recent decades have seen adaptations retold through the imperatives of contemporary relevance, often assuming audiences no longer know the original text. When correction overtakes storytelling, something essential is lost.

This adaptation doesn't engage with complexity. It simply reverses the moral poles: colonials bad, Native people good. That's not critical revision—it's replacement mythology.

The dramatic casualties are severe. Hawkeye—a white man adopted by a Native tribe—is sidelined almost to irrelevance. Here was a character caught between cultures, loyalties and identities: messy, problematic, but dramatically rich. Perfect for exploring the contradictions at the heart of the frontier myth. Instead, he's neutered to make room for a romance between Cora and Uncas, some of which unfolds, bafflingly, on the astral plane.

Were indigenous peoples really humanitarian tree-huggers averse to scalping? The BBC consulted extensively with Native academics and creatives—so why not commission them to create original drama, or a documentary exploring the novel's contested legacy? Why hollow out Cooper's work from within?

The production company, Thomas Carter Productions, was no doubt tied to a very specific brief. But this adaptation, for all its good intentions, smooths away the very tensions that make the material compelling. Drama should make us feel the conflict, not explain it. Instead, we get something respectful, well-intentioned, and dramatically inert—a compliance exercise masquerading as frontier adventure.

@Turnbullissimo, 10 Feb 2026



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