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At the forthcoming request for Charter renewal by the BBC, the Governors could do no better than to sit MPs comfortably on their green benches and screen the entirety of Andrew Davies' magisterial adaptation of Dickens' Bleak House.
A TV series that can afford to throw away a consummate actress like Sheila Hancock as a giggling ninny with almost no dialogue who occupies just seconds of screen time must, by definition, be supremely confident in its ability to entertain. Bleak House has that confidence in spades, and rightly so.
There is so much to treasure here - not least from the seemingly unending parade of well-known (to British audiences, at least) faces on parade. I particularly relished Matthew Kelly's absurdly self-important Old Mr Turveydrop, Liza Tarbuck's do-gooding drab, Nathaniel Parker's loathsome Mr Skiphold, Denis Lawson's achingly tender-hearted Mr Jarndyce and Hugo Speer's staunch Sergeant George. But even from the lesser-known cast - like poor, sweet Harry Eden and the two young wards who float prettily at the story's centre - there are moments of pure joy.
Three performances, however, really stand out as being responsible for making this so much more than a collection of delightful cameos. Anna Maxwell Martin provides a calm and sensible centre to the many comings and goings in Dickens' complex tale - her pale, inquisitive face registering calm resignation at the turmoils Esther must undergo. Stalwart of epic dramas like The Jewel in the Crown, Charles Dance is hypnotically dreadful as the wicked Tulkinghorn, glowering and scheming with real menace, and without once resorting to camp.
For me though, the performance of the series (and that is saying something) is Gillian Anderson's Lady Dedlock. Shot in an eerily bleak blue light, and seeming always on the verge of cracking like a porcelain vase, she is nothing short of mesmerising.
In short, the finest TV adaptation of a Dickens novel ever made and another triumph for Andrew Davies and the BBC.
score 9/10
marcelproust 21 June 2006
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1398675/ |
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8-11-2020 13:04:14