The words 'magnificent, wonderful, superb' all tumble off one's tongue as one exclaims upon the excellence of this mini-series which is, frankly, a work of art. One of the things which makes it is its absolutely perfect casting. There is not even the hint of a false note anywhere. The film features what may be the most brilliant and moving performance by Michael Gambon of his entire career, and that is saying a lot, considering his body of work and that he is one of the finest actors ever produced by Britain. But the central jewel of the production is the lead performance by Justine Waddell, who represents everything in the round that she is meant to be, and is so far from being a cardboard character that she is positively four-dimensional and radiantly glowing with warmth and life. Rarely has a classic mini-series been so fortunate in the inspired casting of a young heroine. And the other two young women in the story are also brilliantly played by Rosamund Pike ('she who rises to the surface') and Keeley Hawes (who had just finished making a feature film with Gambon, THE LAST September). Waddell's father is played to perfection by Bill Paterson. Everyone is not only good but excellent, and that applies equally to Francesca Annis, who drives us all mad by playing one of the most irritating women imaginable (Waddell's step-mother) with such utter conviction, and with every tiny mannerism intact, that it is impossible to watch without wanting to wring her neck. (Was she attacked in the street by exasperated viewers after this mini-series aired, one wonders.) And although she only appears in the early part of the mini-series and then dies, we must not forget one of England's finest actresses, Penelope Wilton, as Gambon's wife, seen here once again at her recurrent best. And then there is Iain Glen as 'a passionate tiger' of a man prowling round and driving some women mad with all that sexual energy, who has been yet another victim of the inconstant Hawes, whose affections are as flitting as a moth's flight. And there is also good Tom Hollander, suffering admirably in his intolerable position of being secretly married but unable to tell his father. Elizabeth Gaskell's last novel is the basis of this mini-series, brilliantly scripted by that old hand at such things, Andrew Davies. The direction by Nicholas Renton is masterful and inspired. I am not at all well-read in 19th century English fiction but 'they say' that Mrs. Gaskell, as she is generally known, was most remarkable (the DVD has a half-hour extra about her) and 'better than Dickens and Jane Austen'. Well, I think there is no doubt she ranks with them in any case. This story is laden with deep emotion, loss, intrigue, tragedy, pathos, joy and happiness all thrown together, and you never know which will emerge moment by moment as the complex tale moves forward with its many characters, with Justine Waddell playing a young woman of excellent character, Miss Gibson, who is at the centre of it all. The story has a brief and dreamy preamble in which Miss Gibson as a child meets 'the grand people', and then the main story begins with the touching father-daughter friendship of Waddell and the her loving father, the widower Paterson, a village doctor, which is then interrupted by his precipitate decision to remarry a woman who seems charming but who suddenly turns into a nightmare (Annis). She won't even permit her husband to eat cheese, his favourite food, because its smell offends her, and her ludicrous social affectations are truly nauseating. This was an admirable opportunity for Mrs. Gaskell to throw her darts at social pretensions, and she never misses. The lives of the Gibsons are constantly intertwined with those of the Squire (Gambon) and his family, and hovering also just beyond the fringe of the main action are Lord and Lady Cumnor, 'the grand people of Cumnor Towers', a huge stately home with lots of marble and suffocating grandeur, who are to be decisive in the story eventually. The local inhabitants are called by them 'the townspeople', and all the townswomen curtsy to the Cumnors if they encounter them even in the street. So we see a portrait of a highly stratified society, but no servants enter into the story. (I almost said serfs!) This is not an upstairs/downstairs story at all. It is about the high and the low, but not about the lowly. To try to summarize the complicated story, which evolves majestically over 301 minutes, not one second of which is boring, would take, well, 301 minutes, so shall not be attempted here. Anyone with good sense who has not seen this yet will buy the DVD immediately. Failure to do so will result in the administration of 301 strokes of the ruler across the back of the hand, exile to the colonies, or being left alone in a room for an hour with Francesca Annis in character. But such fates are reserved only for those who fail to buy the DVD. Those who do have instead a most pleasant fate, that of being mesmerised for five hours of thrilling drama. Truly, this mini-series is sublime.
