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First, I just love Maxine Peake. Her relationship with Peter Moffat is so reminiscent of that between Billie Whitelaw and Samuel Beckett. For me, she can do no wrong...but this series, about a working Derbyshire family with its sometimes unremitting grimness of life, has more...
The entire cast portrays three-dimensional living, loving, flawed characters. No bland platitudes of Downton Abbey with its Karma Sutra of master-servant relationships, but an honest look at the exploitation of class and the difficulty of getting through it all. Even the Allinghams, the "toffs" in this masterpiece, are complex and edgy.
The series is just wonderfuland the now final episode brought me to tears with a combination of beautiful, "can't see the wheels go round" acting, occasional music, and political passion.
The message for today is underlined by Pikerty in his "Capital." The one-percent rich are still with us and the exploitation of the working man is almost complete (and that includes middle class professionals) as automation makes their labor irrelevant. The rich can at last reflect on their fortune, in both senses, and convince themselves they have done it all themselves. The Allinghams march on, as so do we, the Middletons, and Tolpuddle Martyrs of this world...remember, "they are few, but we are many."
This gritty series is so relevant today, so much more than a nostalgic review of languid privilege. It points the way. Socialism is not dead, but is needed for the coming years - that and passion.
This series has it all. It's the best of television since Dennis Potter.
score 10/10
ianfclark 15 September 2014
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3086753/ |
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1-11-2020 13:37:05