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Why I Love...Cranford
- Posted at 4:19pm
- 03 December 2007
- by WilliamGallagher-RT
- 6 comments
No guns, no car chases, no rushing to hospital. Part of Cranford's appeal is that it's different to every other drama, but I'm stuck to it like glue because it's alive. Vivid characters trying to be all English and polite while their fists are clenching from rage. Every nod of the head is perfectly correct etiquette but every eye is envious, plotting, snide.
It's the story of one year in a Cheshire market town of the 1840s - and it looks like every town in every BBC costume drama, chiefly because it is. Filmed in Lacock, Wiltshire, it's made by most of the same people behind 1995's perfect Pride and Prejudice. The same production team, the same producer in Sue Birtwistle, but instead of writer Andrew Davies and his predilection for sexing up the classics, we get screenwriter Heidi Thomas. She writes with a spark, creating tiny moments that stick in the mind and it's no surprise that she's been made executive producer on her next project, Ballet Shoes.
With Cranford, she's taken Elizabeth Gaskell's novel and lovingly ripped it apart: Thomas's adaptation nabs incidents from the original and other books, even from Gaskell's own life, to create a series where little happens - but it's bursting with incident.
A cat swallowing lace, a whole sequence about the proper way to eat oranges, they're moments that you have to see and that you won't forget. Eileen Aitkins plays the lines and gives the looks that pierce the characters around her, and at times she's even better than the star of the show, Judi Dench. You don't often see Dame Judi play second fiddle. It almost seems wrong.
But for all that the series is about a closed, even oppressive little society, nothing stands still and both actresses build up to moments of immense, joyous, superb fun - and then to utter heartbreak.
Mixing comedy and tragedy, Cranford heightens both; we don't get the 'funny' episode, we get real characters in impossible situations, often of their own making. You laugh at them all, you laugh with many of them, but you also feel an awful pang when things go so inescapably wrong for them.
For that one hour each week, you're not at home, you're in Cranford. And it's a delicious marvel that you don't just watch, you cherish.
Comments
- Posted on 17 December 2007
- at 9:58am
- by Ionaclio
Cranford, Oh Cranford! How I am going to miss you. It has been an excellent series and Sunday nights are not going to be the same! The bodies piled up each week but how they stopped when Judge John Deed put in an appearance! Poor Mr Carter last night and his leg being sawn off. One part of my brain thought he would be walking with a limp in Ashes to Ashes!!! Then I remembered it was only a film! I agree with ShunaMarr that it has been so nice to have a drama which I knew nothing about and not like the Austen and Bronte books at all. I did not find it dark either. Watch Bleak House if you want dark! All in all, fantastic acting as one would expect and well done to the whole company! More, BBC, More!
- Posted on 16 December 2007
- at 5:13pm
- by wrinklyone
- Posted on 13 December 2007
- at 1:59pm
- by wonesy
Well, Cranford, I'm not so sure. Doesn't quite match previous dramas of this ilk. Also most of the action (that I've seen) seems very dark, filmed indoors and practically black and white, I prefer a more colourful display to go with the action. So there.
- Posted on 06 December 2007
- at 11:40am
- by jacq
My problem with Cranford is that it is just not compelling enough. It is a wonderful production on so many levels and yet it's problem is that it never seems to amount to much more than a series of entertaining incidents.
I love period adaptations but the people who wrote these enduring novels really knew about the relationship between plot and character and I don't think you can have one without the other. I really miss the dramatic tension of Bleak House or Our Mutual Friend.
Cranford seems to have everything going for it except the crucial ingredient that no good novelist would have ignored - a compelling plot.
- Posted on 05 December 2007
- at 11:51am
- by Agaatha
I so agree with you so refreshing to have a costume drama to watch on a Sunday evening.....
- Posted on 04 December 2007
- at 1:51pm
- by ShunaMarr
I agree that Cranford is a wonderful highpoint in my viewing week. I've long been a fan of costume dramas but the thing that makes this so refreshing for me is that I don't know the story. Unlike the well known Austen and Bronte books, which have been dramatised to death, I haven't read Gaskell. Consequently, I find that I am not concerned about whether the characters are going to meet my expectations - (because I don't have any preconceived ideas). The characters and story are all new and revealing themselves to me every week. With such a high quality cast it would be difficult to get it wrong - but it gets it sooooo right that I'd run out of superlatives if I tried to describe how tremendously good I find it. I can't wait until next week to see the next episode and yet I'm dreading it ending...Sunday evening will be bereft without it!
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