Suranne Jones gives another great performance in Gentleman Jack based on the true story of Anne Lister a trail blazing lesbian who makes Calamity Jane seem like a lady at a flower show.
This 8 part series is beautifully set in West Yorkshire when Anne returns home to her family determined to transform the fading fortunes of her Ancestral home Shibden Hall and find a wife.
Suranne Jones interviewed on a recent Graham Norton show said that Anne Lister's coded diaries were discovered after her death .
As well as her life story when the code was broken her amorous exploits with women , which of course had to be secret were divulged in graphic detail.
This looks like a fascinating series I've just watched episode 1 and look forward to the next 7 instalments .
This is a BBC/ HBO series and I hope ABC picks it up for local Australian viewers..
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I've just finished watching the final exhilarating 8th episode of Gentleman Jack on Foxtel and felt because of the excellence of the entire series I've added a point to my previous rating and given this series an unusual for me rating of 10/10.
There are a few reasons in my opinion for a perfect score and the main one is Suranne Jones as the lesbian heroine Anne Lister of the 17th Century who's true story wasn't discovered till her 27 volumes of personal diaries were decoded finally by academic Helena Whitbread in 1983.
Suranne Jones should win every accolade or award she will no doubt be nominated for as her performance is more than outstanding,she inhabits this character and brings her to life in a period historic setting but in a contemporary and totally believable manner as the whole series successfully manages to achieve. I place this series right up there with the original Brideshead Revisited and Downton Abbey and hope there may be perhaps another series.
Great news I just read there will be a Series 2 due to the well deserved success of series one.
Special praise for the Creator /Director Sally Wanwright and co directors Sarah Harding and Jennifer Perrott also Art directors Abbie Bellwood ,Richard Downes and Tom Atkins.
This production looks fabulous the costumes by Tom Pye, are beautiful whether their Anne Lister's masculine town and country clothes or the sumptuous gowns worn in the finest homes and courts of Europe.
The entire cast is faultless and the story is a window to history especially the closeted GLBT world and the life and times in England when Queen Victoria who had just been on the throne for 2 years when the story is set.
What a pity she couldn't have read the diaries of Anne Lister, she certainly would have had to reluctantly change her opinion that Lesbianism was non existent.
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