strange and random happenstance

Blackadder Goes Forth
Starring: Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Hugh Laurie, Tim McInnerny, Stephen Fry, Stephen Frost, Gabrielle Glaister, Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, Miranda Richardson, and Geoffrey Palmer
Release Date: September 28th, 1989 - November 2nd, 1989
Rating: ★★★★★
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When Edmund Blackadder decided on a career as a solider it was made when the most dangerous fighting he could expect to see was a native with a sharpened mango. He didn't expect the Germans and their war machine, no one did. He would never have signed up if it meant spending all his time in the mud with two dimwits praying that his baaahing mad General, Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett, KCB, doesn't decide for them to go over the top or pay for the death of his beloved pigeon, Speckled Jim. All Blackadder's time is spent trying to conceive of ways to get as far away from the front and the trenches as possible, though hopefully not by being removed and placed in front of a firing squad as the Flanders Pigeon Murderer. Blackadder is forever hindered by General Melchett's nefarious adjutant Captain Darling. Combine Darling's antipathy with Blackadders two disastrously dysfunctional "friends," Baldrick and Lieutenant George, and if they survive the war it will be a miracle. If only they could put on the best music hall showcase and decamp to London. Or perhaps a stay in hospital is needed. Then there's the flying corps. So many schemes, can one of them save them?

One Christmas my friend Sara gave me the first half of Blackadder the Third on VHS and we promptly sat down and watched all three episodes. I immediately had to have the second half of the season and over the years I have rewatched those tapes so many times that I wore them out. Sara grew up with a love of all things relating to British Comedy thanks to her older brother Paul. Once they became a part of my life my British Comedy horizons expanded. Paul was forever searching for the elusive Blackadder: The Cavalier Years. It just so happens that I was the one who found it on eBay. I remember as we watched the grainy bootleg tape Paul's disbelief that this young girl who was rapidly gaining in British Comedy knowledge had somehow beat him to the punch. It was an odd little tape made up of Comic Relief Sketches and a music video of Cliff Richard singing "Living Doll" with The Young Ones. But it also had one episode of Blackadder on there that I hadn't seen. I was very strapped for cash at the time and most of my money was going towards my Red Dwarf purchases so I hadn't yet gotten Blackadder Goes Forth. Figuring I knew enough about Blackadder I watched "Goodbyeee" and was just floored by the episode.

The episode is so poignant as I watched these characters die. Sure, we'd seen certain characters bite the big one before on previous seasons, but this was just so much more. This was the final goodbye. Blackadder Goes Forth was the final of four series and we had come to know and love these characters over many years and here they were leaving us forever. How could the writers give the perfect send off while also doing right by their creations? At the time when it was revealed that this final season was to be set during World War I it was criticized for being inappropriate. But I defy you to find any show that shows the horrors of the Great War so heartrendingly. When the show fades to black and white and then the field turns into a field of poppies, I dare anyone not to cry. It does justice to the war by showing how these characters we love reacted to it. It makes so much sense to end the show when the world forever changed. Each season was a different epoch, but I don't think anything quite got the point across to me that history was forever changed by the advent of World War I than a single episode of a rather silly British Comedy.

While people were initially concerned that this series would trivialize the war it not only forged a closer connection and understanding to the war with viewers but it continued the honorable tradition of using humor to shine a light on the truth. Yes, who would have thought that a show based on sarcastic put-downs and sex jokes would show the true horrors of the war? It's not like there was precedence? Oh wait says 'Allo 'Allo, Dad's Army, F Troop, Hogan's Heroes, M*A*S*H*, McHale's Navy and others. Comedy is, in my opinion, the best way to understand a situation but also to make it bearable. Humor is healing. Just as I said when I read Nancy Mitford's Nazis satire, Wigs on the Green, by taking something scary and laughing at it we take away it's power. We memorialize while putting the pain in it's place. But Blackadder Goes Forth does so much more. I remember when I first watched this last episode I couldn't believe that a show that had made me laugh so hard could also make me cry so much. Could make me really care about the Great War. For all those history books I read and even for my love of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles for some reason I never got the human element, it was all larger than life. It was the humor that revealed the humans.

But it's the asides, the throwaway jokes that shed a light on what World War I was really like. You might laugh at Baldrick saying he's grateful for the new trench ladders because they had kindling for the first time in months, or how rat is what is on the menu, cooked in a variety of fashions that are all eerily similar, or drinking coffee that is actually just mud, but the truth was the war was full of privations and attrition. We may think of it now as beautiful fields of poppies and heroic men and women who gave their lives, but it was mud and diseases these heroes faced. Plus, the humor used doesn't just aid in understanding the war but in understanding how the soldiers probably survived. If they couldn't think like Blackadder and use a little dark humor now and again how could they survive without all going wooble? Just look at the terrifying thought of the flying squadron? The 'Twenty Minuters.' Called such not because of the length of a mission but because that was the average life expectancy of a new pilot. While this might be stretching the truth a little, it's not by much. Remember, the planes they fought in were mostly made of canvas!

The show also tackles the problem of the "old boys club" that was the military at the time. World War I was the last war where rank was almost solely decided by social ranking. The upper classes taking on the more senior leadership roles, no matter how inept they were. I mean, how messed up was it that you could buy your commission? Pompous, childish, incompetent, and rather dim we see this "club" in the interactions between George and Melchett who speak in their own weird language at the top of the ladder. George is even given a "get out of jail free card" when Melchett offers him the chance to leave the trench before the big push. George though isn't just of the "old boys club" he also embodies the idealistic young men who joined up in a group thinking they'd all be home for Christmas. George is in fact the last one left of the tiddlywinking leapfroggers. When he talks about all the others he joined up with, and their ludicrous nicknames, you see the idealism that was the start of the war. The fact that George has been able to hang onto that throughout is something of a miracle. That he didn't turn into a cynic like Blackadder just goes to show that the war was made up of many good men, of all different kinds, that did what had to be done, even if it seemed contrary to just walk at the guns, they did it for liberty and their loss will be forever felt.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Fall of Poppies, Blackadder, Blackadder Goes Forth, British Comedy, Hugh Laurie, Nancy Mitford, Red Dwarf, Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, VHS, Wigs on the Green, WWI

The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie
Published by: Harper Collins
Publication Date: 1923
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Poirot is lamenting the lack of any interesting cases. He doesn't know what he will do if he is asked to find yet another missing dog for some Dame or doyenne. Then he receives a letter from a Monsieur Paul Renauld. This lights up his face and gets his little grey cells going. Poirot is to set out at once for Merlinville-sur-Mer in France because Monsieur Renauld fears for his life daily. A fear that was justified. When Poirot and Hastings arrive in France, Monsieur Renauld is dead. His body was found next to an open grave on a golf course abutting his property, while his wife was restrained in their bedroom. When she is well enough, she tells the story of two heavily bearded men who wreaked this tragedy on her family. And yet... while everything seems open and shut, Poirot doesn't agree. He soon sets his little grey cells to work and finds many suspects and echos of the crime in the past. Soon another body is discovered and Poirot has two murders to solve, and solve them he will. Poirot must prove that old fashioned crime fighting can beat modern forensics any day.

Firstly I must say I breathed a true sigh of relief when I got immersed in the book and realized that there would be nothing about golf in it. Now you might find it strange that this was my first thought going into the book, but with a title like The Murder on the Links, I was picturing people being clubbed to death round the third hole... or close to that as makes no difference. I don't doubt Agatha Christie and Poirot's ability to make golf even mildly interesting to me, it's just if I don't have to deal with it all the better. I can not fathom why people like to watch golf, playing, maybe I get it a little, mini-golf, I totally get that, but watching it... no thank you, it's like some really boring activity that maybe is zen like to some people but to me is a snooze fest. Whereas a dead body just found on a golf course next to an empty grave? Sign me up!

Now I've reached the part of the review where I rant about Hastings, you had to know it was coming. While I can see why Poirot keeps Hastings around, it is the true Watson/Holmes dynamic after all, there are times I just want to smack Hastings. I think I'm coming around a bit to my mother's Hastings hate. He's just such a blithering idiot. Poirot needs to spell out every little thing for him. I'm sorry, but if Hastings is there as a conduit for the reader, can I upgrade the conduit, to say, Mrs. Oliver? And speaking of Mrs. Oliver, I find it interesting that in actuality, she is in as many books as Hastings is. She appeared in six Poirot novels, and two other novels as well, whereas, Hastings is in eight novels, but because of the collections of short stories, Hastings appears to be more prolific in the life of Poirot then he really is. Also, I really can not in my head separate him from the actor who plays Hastings, Hugh Fraser. Now I'm sure he's a fine actor, I just would have preferred a more likable buffoon, like Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster. So instead of having Hugh Laurie read to me in my head, I have Hugh Fraser. Plus, he was too old for Hastings. He's mentioned as being 35 in the first book, and Hugh was a good ten years older when Poirot started.

Ok, enough on my Hastings rant... hmm, if they were to excise him from the show I think Stephen Mangan would be perfect... no really, I'm done with this now. Here's what I love about the Hastings/Poirot dynamic. Poirot is always chiding Hastings for his melodramatic and overly romantic notions, saying at times Hastings' ideas would make wonderful movies, but this is real life. Yet, deep down, Poirot is a romantic. Hastings and Poirot are really kindred spirits, with vastly different IQs. Poirot more then once plays the matchmaker and gets a little gleam in his eye. But then again, those who believe in the fine art of deduction have to be romantics in some way. To choose the path of deduction verses cold hard evidence... ah, a beating heart must be there with the little grey cells.

But what really drove the plot for me was the antagonism between Poirot and Monsieur Giraud of the Paris Sûreté. Poirot had earlier been deriding Hastings on these "new" police methods of cigarette butts and tiny bits of dirt and stray hairs, and of course, the fingerprints! Poirot believed, and rightfully as is always the case with Poirot, that these new detection methods that have the police scrambling around in the dirt for hours for a stray hair have turned the noble art of detection into being nothing more then a foxhound. Also, the evidence can easily be planted or faked. Poirot insists that a true detective needs nothing more then their little grey cells! As you would expect, Poirot is vindicated in his opinions. What's interesting is that I think this struggle between Poirot and Giraud shows why people love the Golden Age of Detection. It's about motive and profiling and thought processes. Solving crime was romantic. It wasn't about watching some hot lab tech run a DNA test like on any of the various CSI shows. You needed little grey cells, not computer equipment. While it could said the Girauds of the world have won, it's the Poirots of the world we love and venerate. Though if someone did a David Caruso CSI: Miami meme with David Suchet in character as Poirot, I think I might be the happiest person in the world.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, CSI, David Caruso, Golden Summer, Golf, Hastings, Hugh Laurie, John Watson, Mrs. Oliver, Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, Stephen Mangan, The Murder on the Links

The Mischief of the Mistletoe: A Pink Carnation Christmas by Lauren Willig
Published by: Dutton
ARC Provided by Dutton
Publication Date: October 28th, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
Challenge: Historical Fiction
Rating: ★★★★★
Recommended for: Anglophiles, Janeites, Knee Breech Buffs, Pudding Praisers, Regency Reverers, Pimpernel Paramours and Turnip Treasurers
To Buy
Arabella Dempsey has been thrown back onto the bosom of her family. Her Aunt has made a bit of a to-do, marrying a man closer in age to her niece, who might have been a little too close to her niece's heart. Arabella's years being raised as her Aunt's companion and nominal heiress have been brushed aside with one wedding vow. She must now return to her family, whom she barely knows, and be a burden on their already strained income. But Arabella is determined to make her way in the world and not go back to be her Aunt's lapdog while the man she loves can never be hers. She is for teaching. Which, according to her old family friend Jane, should really be reconsidered. Has she ever even seen the inside of an all girls school? But she is hired by Miss Climpson, of Miss Climpson's Select Seminary for Young Ladies, and promptly bowled over by one Mr. Reginald Fitzhugh, Turnip to his friends. Turnip has been at the school visiting his sister Sally and her new very "peculiar" particular friends, Lizzy Reid and Agnes Wooliston, who replace the now shunned Catherine Carruthers, she did take Sally's most favorite ribbons after all. Turnip quickly realizes that being in a small room with three very rambunctious teenagers is the last place he wants to be, let alone in a building full of them. Taking the proffered Christmas Pudding, he walks out the door and straight into Miss Dempsey. Despite having met her many a time on the dance floors of the ton, Turnip has no memory of this slightly bruised girl. But then again, Arabella and him never quite occupied the same side of the dance floor, she being more their to wait on her aunt and balance out the numbers. Turnip, always the cheerful gentleman, profusely apologizes and takes his leave of her and his Christmas Pudding. Arabella rushes after Mr. Fitzhugh with his forgotten Pudding only to be attacked by a man outside the school desperate for the pudding. After Mr. Fitzhugh once again picks Miss Demspey out of the gutter, she does have a talent for falling at his feet, they find the deuced oddest thing. A secret message in the pudding! Well, written on the pudding's muslin wrapper to be precise. The message says to meet at Farley Castle, where there is to be a Frost Fair the next day. In a time of spies and the terrors in France, secret messages in puddings are not to be taken lightly, even in all girls schools. Especially if those messages are written in French!

Couldn't the spies have picked anywhere other than the Frost Fair? The place where Arabella is most likely to run into her Aunt and her new Uncle? But she has to admit, showing up with Mr. Fitzhugh, root vegetable though he may be, he's a root vegetable with 30,000. So with Jane in tow they all head to the castle despite bovine interruptions. Once there they discover yet another pudding! Turnip is all for further investigations, but Arabella puts her foot down. Tomorrow she is for the real world of teaching and papers to grade and ink and not very fashionable grey dresses with pockets. This "spy" business might have been fun but it is over. Good luck telling that to the mischievous pudding thief. Beset by students and mysterious mustachioed men in the night, things look to be getting more and more out of hand, as are Arabella's feelings towards Mr. Fitzhugh. But when she finally puts her foot down, when she finally says enough is enough and they must never see each other again, little does she know they are to spend all of the twelve days of Christmas together at a house party in Norfolk. Twelve days of pudding and long glances, and physical assaults. Because the culprits haven't contained themselves to the hallowed halls of a girls school in Bath, they are now lurking the grand passages of Girdings House. But hopefully with an earnest and loving root vegetable all will turn out just as it should, with a kiss under the mistletoe.

Rarely has a book made me smile from ear to ear and laugh aloud as I have reading The Mischief of the Mistletoe, twice now I must add. Loosely based on the skeleton of the story The Watsons, by Jane Austen, Lauren has taken Austen and amped it up to farce level in the best possible of ways. She has taken Austen, and dare I say, improved it for a modern audience. Austen, while humorous, has a staid and classical voice to her narration, while Willig lets her characters loose, losing hair pins and perhaps their reputations in the process in a hilarious page turner that isn't above adding in a few modern references with Blackadder references. The hero of the hour, while, according to Willig, is based on Bertie Wooster, is perhaps the most lovable root vegetable hero in history, even if this means you start confusing Hugh Laurie in Jeeves and Wooster with Hugh Laurie as the Prince Regent, I can't but help love Turnip more than Bertie and Hugh Laurie has to beat off my Nicholas Rowe with a stick for the part. He may not be smart, he doesn't over think things, but he has the biggest heart to match his big smile, that you will find yourself sporting as your race towards his happy ending.

While fans of Willig will love that Turnip is finally getting the girl, despite his overly florid taste in waistcoats, I have to say, that I think this novel could easily stand alone. While we do have repeating characters, and overlapping plots, there is enough of a distance and enough new characters, that this is literally the perfect Christmas gift for the literary minded who like a little bit of Regency. One reason being that this book is a very clever idea on Lauren and Dutton's part to do a more giftable book, hence the smaller size, which I kind of opine... and here I'm not talking length, but actual book dimensions, I want my books to have the same height dammit! But also the modern interludes of Colin and Eloise, the scholar and the descendant of the spy, The Purple Gentian, have been excised. I agree with Lauren in many regards to their not being present. She could not have done justice to them in a smaller book. The book wouldn't have been as easily read by those unfamiliar with the previous six installments. But more importantly, it made me have an epiphany, a new realization when I read this book and then proceeded to re-read all her previous books. Colin and Eloise are great, and I love their story, but they have become extraneous. I, who have been the most vocal on their staying, can now see that perhaps, their story has run its course... of course I thought this before reading the next installment, The Orchid Affair, which throws a serious wrench into things, and now I'm desperate for their story line again. In the final analysis, I can't get enough of the world Lauren has created. I want to have young adult novels of the three little sisters. I want to know if Turnip and Arabella ever decided to try some Strawberry jam to replace the standard Raspberry. And I need to know why Sally is scared of chickens. And her ribbons! Are they tying a certain Christmas Pudding? Austen created a memorable world, but each of her six novels are in a rarefied and finite world, whereas, the world is messy. Love has complications and pudding and torn sleeves and missed moments and kisses that could have been. All of this needs mess with the tears and the joy, and Austen might not be messy enough to reflect how life is. Not that we still don't get the fairy tale ending, as Austen was wont to do, but the ride is a little more boisterous.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Pink Carnation Christmas, Arabella Dempsey, Bertie Wooster, Blackadder, Hugh Laurie, Jane Austen, Lauren Willig, Reading Challenge, The Mischief of the Mistletoe, The Watsons, Turnip Fitzhugh

So, um...this is embarrassing....but I don't have any books for this weeks post....It's not that I don't want to recommend new books to you, it's just that I couldn't find any books I really wanted to condone. I'm sure there is something new out there you'll like, I just couldn't be bothered to look anymore when I do have something else to recommend! That's right, something old is new again and I'm expanding the parameters of this post to include DVDs!

Black Adder Remastered: The Ultimate Edition
Actors: Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Miranda Richardson, Hugh Laurie, Tim McInnery, Stephen Fry
Published by: BBC Warner
Publication Date: October 20th, 2009
Format: DVD
Number of Discs: 6
To Buy

The official patter:
"Rowan Atkinson is deliciously twisted as the comic villain, Edmund Blackadder, in the enormously popular comedy series. Follow Blackadder in hysterical send-ups of the Middle Ages, the Elizabethan age, the Regency period, and World War I. This special edition contains new exclusive interviews and audio commentaries , making it a must have for all BlackAdder fans.

- Remastered series: The Black Adder, Blackadder II, Blackadder the Third, Blackadder Goes Forth
- New commentary by Rowan Atkinson and John Lloyd, Stephen Fry, Ben Elton and Richard Curtis, Tony Robinson and Tim McInnery
- Blackadder Rides Again: special 60-minute documentary to mark the 25th anniversary
- Exclusive extended interviews with Hugh Laurie, Rowan Atkinson, Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, Tony Robinson, Stephen Fry
- Costumes Revisited with Miranda Richardson, Patsy Byrne, Tony Robinson, Tim McInnery
- Plus Blackadder's Christmas Carol, Blackadder the Cavalier Years, Blackadder Back and Forth, Baldrick's Video Diary and more "

That hilarious of depraved individuals, Edmund Black Adder has had a bit of a spruce up. Black Adder has been remastered and made as good as low grade quality BBC 1980s video tape can be. Even though I have the series I am sure looking forward to the upgrade because besides all new commentaries we get some new documentaries, specials and interviews. For people who just can't get enough of Edmund, Baldrick, Melchet and the rest this is the best thing since the last best thing. Plus one can never have enough of Hugh Laurie as the Prince Regent! The episode with Robbie Coltrane as Samuel Johnson is perhaps the funniest half hour of television you will ever see...aardvark's agree.

Fawlty Towers: The Complete Collection Remastered
Actors: John Cleese, Andrew Sachs, Connie Booth, Prunella Scales
Published by: BBC Warner
Publication Date: October 20th, 2009
Format: DVD
Number of Discs: 3
To Buy

-Exclusive commentary by John Cleese
-2009 extended interviews, including exclusive interview with Connie Booth
-Accompanying booklet
-Interviews with John Cleese, Prunella Scales, and Andrew Sachs
-Series 1 director's commentary by John Howard Davies
-Series 2 director's commentary by Bob Spiers
-Artist profiles
-Outtakes
-Torquay Tourist Guide (short documentary film)
-Cheap Tatty Review"

Fawlty Towers is also being released in a remastered edition. Most likely to fund John Cleese's newest alimony payments, having just let wife number three, his costar Connie Booth also being an ex, he makes no bones about the fact he could always use the money. Fawlty Tower is the quintessential BBC Comedy and I luckily enough, unlike Blackadder, never upgraded from my VHS set and am happy I didn't, what with all the new extras.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 2:32 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Baldrick, BBC Comedy, Connie Booth, DVD, Edmund Black Adder, Fawlty Towers, Hugh Laurie, John Cleese, Melchet, Robbie Coltraine, Samuel Johnson, Tuesday Tomorrow

Unlike most people I think of summer as the time of the miniseries. Most people associate them with cold winter nights in January and February, in other words, when Masterpiece no-longer-Theater airs their classic line-up, but not me. Most likely this is to do with the fact that the first time I watched Andrew Davies' Pride and Prejudice it was mid-July 1996. Unlike everyone else I know who watched it back in February of that year I was too busy finishing up senior year of high school. Soon after finally getting my diploma (held until I returned my cap and gown) I started a crash course in Jane Austen. After all 1996 was the perfect year for Austen, Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility was in theaters as well as Gweneth Paltrow's Emma, and of course, Pride and Prejudice. I would read the book, then watch the accompanying adaptation. I watched Pride and Prejudice in one sitting. It was all I asked for for my birthday that year (VHS of course!) But since then I have developed a veritable fount of miniseries knowledge and information, and I will give you the best of the best (which tend to be Andrew Davies centric), but I have also watched the worst of the worst as well, so when I say watch, think of all that I've seen to make it a must watch. Also for my facebook friends I have made an even more extensive list contained in my notes!

First with the Austen adaptations:

Sense and Sensibility - The 1995 Emma Thompson version, mainly because of Hugh Laurie, but also because Willoughby in the newer version looks like a monkey and the clothes are crappy (which they tried to justify with a documentary on the disc but I'm still crying foul).

Pride and Prejudice - The 1995 Andrew Davies' adaptation staring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle created the modern miniseries. As one reviewer said, "Man goes into lake, man comes out of lake, world changes."

Mansfield Park - The 2007 Billie Piper version, and yes it takes big liberties, but it's still a lot of fun, and the Crawfords are superbly cast. Also I won't talk to you about the Frances O'Connor version, there was not slave trading in Jane Austen's novels, it might be historically correct, but Harold Pinter raping slaves? NO!

Emma - The 1996 Gwyneth Paltrow version, because I can't bring myself to like the Kate Beckinsale version due to Mark Strong being a creepy Knightly. Also Alan Cumming is perfect as Mr. E.

Northanger Abbey - The 2007 Andrew Davies' adaptation is possibly his best Austen adaption yet! Who knew it was so funny! Also the inclusion of more of the contemporary Gothic literature from Anne Radcliffe and others is sheer genius.

Persuasion - I like both the 1995 version with Amanda Root and the 2007 version with Sally Hawkins. The Sally Hawkins version is more liberal with the source material, but Anthony Stewart Head (Giles from Buffy) as Sir Walter Elliot is perfect! As is Tobias Menzies as William Elliot.

Thackeray, a nice bridge between Austen and the Brontes:

Vanity Fair - 1998 Andrew Davies' adaptation with Natasha Little is perfect in every way and doesn't miss the point of a "novel without a heroine" like the Reese Witherspoon version.

Now onto the Bronte's, who I really can't hate for hating Jane Austen, everyone can have their own opinion (though Mark Twain seemed to have an unreasonable hatred of Jane):

Jane Eyre - 2006 adaptation with Toby Stephens is the first adaptation I have just loved. Plus filmed at the same castle as The Princess Bride!

The Brontes of Haworth - 1973 docudrama on their lives, totally fascinating, plus a young Michael Kitchen (Foyle of Foyle's War).

Elizabeth Gaskell:

Wives and Daughters - 1999 Andrew Davies' possibly BEST EVER adaptation. Michael Gambon won the BAFTA for this and it's not a surprise in the least. Just perfect.

North and South - 2004 adaptation has slow parts, but the ending is perfect. Made Richard Armitage the next Colin Firth.

Cranford - 2007 adaptation, so sad, be prepared for lots of death.

Dickens, of which I've watched alot and enjoyed, but only one I truly loved:

Little Dorrit - 2008 Andrew Davies' adaptation with a perfect cast, and Gareth from The Office in a bizzare cameo (you have to love Mackenzie Crook!)

Trollope:

The Pallisers - 1974 tv series, a little dated, but still fabulous, and there are rumors Andrew Davies is doing a new adaptation!

Barchester Chronicles - 1982, and if you can get through the slow first episode, some of the funniest acting from Alan Rickman ever!

The Way We Live Now - 2001 Andrew Davies, and it shows that David Suchet can act! (I really had my doubts).

He Knew He Was Right - 2004, perfection by Andrew Davies, Bill Nighy, so funny, but you can't top David Tennant in this production nor a knife weilding Claudie Blakley.

George Eliot:

Middlemarch - 1994 and the start of the Davies Dynasty, which he is ironically re-writing to be shot again!

Daniel Deronda - 2004 Andrew Davies, introduces us to Hugh Dancy and somehow was able to make Hugh Bonneville scary!

Flora Thompson:

Lark Rise to Candleford - 2008, perfection and happiness in a world where nothing goes too badly.

John Galsworthy:

The Forsyte Saga - 2002 and perhaps the best miniseries in existence! You will cry till you feel slightly ill, but it's worth it. Also how Corin Redgrave didn't win a BAFTA is beyond me. Don't miss part two, "To Let" which continues the saga. Also lets hope that now Damian Lewis' tv series Life was cancelled they will finish the series with the final chapter.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 10:49 PM 0 comments  

Labels: Andrew Davies, Anthony Trollope, BBC Miniseries, Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, Flora Thompson, Hugh Laurie, Jane Austen