Cranford’s producer, Sue Birtwistle, will be giving a talk at the Southwold Literature Festival on Nov. 11th at 1pm.

The talk coincides with the publication of a new book about the series co-authored by Sue called ‘The Cranford Companion‘.

Tickets to the talk, priced £9, are available online at www.wayswithwords.com or by ringing the festival Box Office on 01803 867373.

Dame Judi Dench reprises her role as Cranford‘s much cherished Miss Matty Jenkyns on BBC One this Christmas, and heads a cast that boasts some of Britain’s top film, TV and stage talent including Cranford newcomers: Jonathan Pryce, Celia Imrie, Lesley Sharp,Nicholas Le Prevost, Jodie Whittaker, Tom Hiddleston, Michelle Dockery, Matthew McNulty and Rory Kinnear.

Made by BBC Drama Production and WGBH in association withChestermead, Cranford is created by Sue Birtwistle and Susie Conklin, directed by Simon Curtis and written by Heidi Thomas, based on Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel Cranford woven together with two of her other works.

The Amazons of Cranford are reunited in this two-part special feature with Imelda Staunton back as Miss Pole, Julia McKenzie returning as Mrs Forrester, and Deborah Findlay reprising Miss Tomkinson.Barbara Flynn returns as Mrs Jamieson, whose aristocratic sister-in-law, Lady Glenmire (Celia Imrie), arrives and makes quite an impression on the friends.

It’s August 1844 and one year since the small Cheshire market town celebrated the marriage of Sophy Hutton to Dr Harrison and Miss Matty lost her beloved sister, Deborah (Eileen Atkins).

Miss Matty knows only too well that faces will always come and go in Cranford, but for now she is happy that her dear brother, Peter (Nicholas Le Prevost) is home from India and that Martha (Claudie Blakley), Jem and baby Tilly make for a lively household; Lady Ludlow (Francesca Annis) is eagerly awaiting the return of her long-absent son, Septimus (Rory Kinnear), and young Harry Gregson (Alex Etel) is about to start his education at Shrewsbury, benefiting from the late Mr Carter’s bequest and the loyal, moral support of Miss Galindo (Emma Fielding).

Then there’s news that wealthy widower, Mr Buxton (Jonathan Pryce), has returned to live quietly in Cranford bringing with him his charming ward, Erminia (Michelle Dockery) and his handsome Eton-educated son, William (Tom Hiddleston).

Whilst at nearby Thorn Cottage, Peggy Bell (Jodie Whittaker) tries to make the best of things caring for her demanding mother (Lesley Sharp) and opportunistic brother Edward (Matthew McNulty).

Elsewhere, the world continues to change, but for now the railway has stopped five miles outside Cranford in spite of the best efforts Captain Brown (Jim Carter) to bring the modern age right into the heart of King Street. But nothing can stay the same forever and all too soon life in Cranford will change in some very unexpected ways.

Cranford starts filming this June in and around Wiltshire and London.

Kate Harwood, BBC Controller of Series and Serials, and Cranford executive producer, says: “BBC One viewers are in for a treat with the return of Cranford this Christmas. Old favourites return as well as exciting new characters in a richly moving story that will once again delight, enthral and entertain our audience.”

Cameras roll on the Cranford clan early next month for two feature-length TV specials to be screened over next Christmas.

Judi Dench returns as the much-loved Miss Matty, around whom the chronicles turn.

Shooting begins on June 1 and continues into August.

Jonathan Pryce and Celia Imrie are among the newcomers to the village. Cranford is based on novels by Elizabeth Gaskell.

Cranford captured the hearts and minds of viewers and quickly became a ratings smash hit, with almost as many people watching repeats as had watched the original broadcasts. DVD sales of the drama went through the roof.

The plot line is being kept secret. But one character who doesn’t feature is Dr Harrison, played by Simon Woods, who seemed to excite every female of a suitable age (and a few beyond) in the village.

From thisiswiltshire.co.uk

DAME Judi Dench is returning to Lacock this summer after it was announced the BBC want to return to the village to film a Cranford Christmas special.

Stars were filmed in the village in April 2007 for the period drama, The Cranford Chronicles, amidst great excitement from locals and tourists.

Residents have been invited to a meeting with the BBC, Lacock Tenants Association and the parish council at 7pm on March 16 for a meeting about the plans where they will be given the chance to vote it through or not.

If the residents of the National trust village agree, filming will take place from Monday, June 8 to Saturday, June 13.

The cast will include Imelda Staunton, Julia McKenzie, Greg Wise and Francesca Annis as well as Oscar winner, Dame Judi.

The show will again be produced by Sue Birtwhistle and Rupert Ryle Hodges, who will both be at the meeting this month to talk to Lacock residents.

Jan Harris, general manager of the George Inn in Lacock said she would embrace the filming after last year.

She said: “We are really looking forward to it and I understand they also want to film in West Street, which is where we are, so that is very exciting.

“The film crew were very nice last time and people love it. It also brings in revenue for the area as people want to retrace the steps of the filming and see where scenes were shot after it is all over too, so they come to the village.”

Filming will involve scenes set in the High Street, Church Street and West Street and an outline schedule proposes dividing filming into two areas.

Casting will also be held for villagers interested in becoming extras.

Fresh from four BAFTA Television nominations, seven BAFTA Craft nominations and six Broadcasting Press Guild nominations, as well as the TRIC Award 2007 for Best Drama Programme earlier this month and the RTS Award for Best Writer, the two-part special will be produced by co-creator Sue Birtwistle (Pride And Prejudice), directed by Simon Curtis (Five Days, Freezing) and written by Heidi Thomas (Ballet Shoes, Lilies).

BBC One viewers became addicted and entranced by Cranford, a small Cheshire market town in the early 1840s on the cusp of great change. The railway was pushing its way relentlessly towards the town from Manchester, bringing fears of migrant workers and the breakdown of law and order.

The Christmas special picks up the story in September 1844, a year after the town celebrates the wedding of Sophy (Kimberley Nixon) and Dr Harrison (Simon Woods).

Kate Harwood, BBC Head of Series and Serials and executive producer of Cranford, comments: “Cranford captured the hearts of the nation last year as every week, nearly 8 million viewers tuned in to catch up with Miss Matty and her fellow villagers. I am delighted that we are able to bring these much-loved characters back to life for a Christmas special in 2009 and once again uniting an unprecedented pool of talent to thrill and entertain our audiences.”

The Cranford 2009 Christmas special will film in and around Wiltshire and London.

The Cranford 2009 Christmas special was recommissioned by Jane Tranter, Controller, BBC Fiction.

* The Sunday Times – Culture (AA Gill): “I was hooked, gaffed, netted and filleted.”

* The Observer – Review (Kathryn Flett): “Its luscious painterly tableaux vivants make its art direction and photography possibly the most beautiful in any costume drama ever.”

* The Mail On Sunday (Jaci Stephen): “It would be impossible to list all that is great about Cranford without writing out the script verbatim.”

* Sunday Express (David Stephenson): “Cranford is the period drama of the year, and probably the series of the year.”

* Daily Telegraph (James Walton): “Perfect isn’t an adjective that we nit-picking old critics like to use very often – but, in the case of Cranford, I really can’t think of a better one.”

* The Hollywood Reporter: “An instant classic.”

In the best actor category, Cranford stars Philip Glenister and Michael Gambon are both nominated. Cranford is nominated for best drama series. Heidi Thomas is nominated for best writer.

The winners of the awards, which are selected by journalists who write about television and radio, will be announced at a ceremony to be held at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on Friday April 4.

There are also rumours that a second series of the BBC1 drama Cranford with Dame Judi Dench may also return for a second series.

The village is buzzing with excitement and extras from previous productions are hoping to reprise their roles.

Mary Little, 55, who lives just outside the village, was involved with the first series of Cranford.

She said: “It would be lovely to work with the cast and crew again – it was brilliant the first time around.

“Hopefully Dame Judi will come back, especially after she pledged her support to help save the post office.

“Everyone in the village quite enjoys the buzz of having stars coming here and us appearing in films and the TV.”

Sundays, May 4-11, 2008, 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET; and May 18, 9:00-10:00 p.m. ET

A major new five-part miniseries based on Elizabeth Gaskell’s (“Wives and Daughters”) witty and poignant novels about a village on the cusp of change stars Judi Dench (Casino Royale, Notes on a Scandal), with Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake), Eileen Atkins (Evening, Gosford Park), Michael Gambon (“The Lost Prince”), Francesca Annis (“Reckless”) and Greg Wise (“Madame Bovary”).

Cranford, the BBC’s adaptation of three novels by Elizabeth Gaskell, must be one of the most joyously innocent series any broadcaster has screened for a long day.

Instead of foul-mouthed celebrity chefs, domestic violence and revelations of vice, we see simple people leading simple lives in a community modelled upon Knutsford in Cheshire in 1842.

Close-knit: The Cranford women understand the joy of belonging

There is not much of a storyline, beyond that provided by a coy romance between a brash and absurdly handsome young doctor and the parson’s daughter.

Mrs Gaskell, the name under which the author wrote when her tales began to be published in 1851, created a series of portraits of characters in a provincial community: their small loves and fears, hopes and disappointments.

Each one is a miniature, brought to life by a peerless cast headed by Judi Dench, Imelda Staunton and Francesca Annis.

Lisa Dillon, Eileen Atkens, Judi Dench and Imelda Staunton star in Cranford

The women of Cranford – Mrs Gaskell called them “the Amazons” – are by far its most impressive personalities, as indeed were the characters in Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire novels.

Most nurse tiny incomes and have left behind hopes of matrimony – the only fulfilment of ambition open to a Victorian lady.

Their preoccupations are trifling: the cat swallowing the cherished family lace, the cow escaping from its field, and one having its wounds clad in flannel drawers.

Keeping it in the family: Dame Judi Dench, who plays Miss Matty Jenkyns, with her real-life daughter Flinty Williams as Ciara Smith

Some of the women are pathetically silly. Mrs Gaskell wrote to a friend: “Shall I tell you a Cranfordism? An old lady told one of my cousins: ‘I have never been able to spell since I lost my teeth’.”

Her characters are trapped in an existence ruled by convention. “I will go to him,” says Miss Matty, arriving at a dead man’s house. “It is the proper thing to do.”

Their pleasures are tiny: reading aloud; playing Consequences; calling upon each other not a minute before midday; and singing and playing of an evening – sometimes with an excruciating absence of talent.

Dr Harrison, (Simon Woods), Caroline Tomkinson (Selina Griffiths), and Jessie Brown (Julia Sawalha) wait for the cameras to roll during the filming of Cranford

Yet the courage and good cheer of these little people is as compelling as the intimacy of their community.

The BBC’s Cranford offers a window on a world that few of us would ourselves want to inhabit, but which possesses virtues whose loss in our own times we lament.

“I imagine that a few of the gentlefolks of Cranford were poor,” wrote Mrs Gaskell in her novel, “and had some difficulty in making both ends meet; but they were like the Spartans, and concealed their smart under a smiling face …

Class divide: Francesca Annis, left, stars as aristocrat Lady Ludlow, who is enraged that her servant Margaret Gidman (Bessie Carter) can read

The Cranfordians had that kindly esprit de corps which made them overlook all deficiencies in success when some among them tried to conceal their poverty.

“It was considered ‘vulgar’ (a tremendous word in Cranford) to give guests anything expensive, in the way of eatables or drinkables, at evening entertainments.

“If they walked to or from a party, they told themselves it was because the night air was so bracing, not because sedan chairs were expensive.

“If they wore prints instead of summer silks, they persuaded themselves that this was because they washed easily, not because they could not afford high fashion.”

Ready for action: Dr Harrison (the dashing Simon Woods) receives some last-minute make-up and costume adjustments

There was a touching little scene in last week’s TV episode, in which Miss Matty (Judi Dench) struggled to eat her peas with a fork.

She winced at the spectacle of Mr Holbrook (Michael Gambon), a rich farmer who wants to marry her even in her middle age, eating them off his knife. That alliance, alas for both lonely souls, never did come off.

Yet beneath their society’s genteel pretensions was a kindness and sympathy towards each other, especially during the troubles and sorrows of which disease and premature death brought so many, which was beyond price.

A few years before Mrs Gaskell, another wonderfully gifted writer chronicled the same world.

“Of all situations for a constant residence,” wrote Mary Russell Mitford, ‘that which appears to me most delightful is a little village far in the country; a small neighbourhood … where we know everyone, are known to everyone, interested in everyone, and authorised to hope that everyone feels an interest in us.

“How pleasant it is … to learn to know and to love the people about us, with all their peculiarities, just as we learn to love the nooks and turns of the shady lanes and sunny commons that we pass every day!”

Miss Mitford wrote with wonderful enthusiasm about the people around her, though she herself had ample cause for bitterness.

Her monstrous father squandered three fortunes – his own, his wife’s and £20,000 (the equivalent of £1.5 million today) – which Mary had won in a lottery at the age of ten.

Thereafter, until her death in 1855, she lived in spinster poverty in a cottage near Reading, where her flower garden was her only luxury.

But no hint of these troubles crept into her lyrical pieces for The Lady’s Magazine, in which she portrayed her neighbours as skillfully and charmingly as did Elizabeth Gaskell.

She wrote, for instance, about the passions and loyalties roused by village cricket.

A local girl had been dallying with a young man named Jem Browne, a terrific cricketer who eventually decamped in despair of winning her hand.

Just before the big match, the girl sent him the following desperate appeal: “For mistur jem browne blaxsmith. Mistur Browne this is to inform yew that oure parish plays bramley men next monday is a week, i think we shall lose without yew, from your humbell servant to command, Mary Allen.”

On receipt of this irresistible missive, Jem Browne set off at 4am next day to walk 12 miles to play for Mary’s parish. We are given leave to hope that both matches ended as they should.

It was a world in which all pleasures had to be made at home. “The party did go off verrie well,” wrote a farmer’s wife in a diary whose authorship has never been established, a decade or two before Mrs Gaskell.

“I did play a merrie jigge on the spinette, which did please all vastly. After we had all etten our fill, we to dancing; and Farmer Bliss did sing, as did divers others.

“Then Parson Jones did tell us a ghost story that did make my hair to rise; and we did pass the wine and all did get verrie merrie before they did go, in the early howers.”

Though they feared God, in those times when darkness reigned everywhere outdoors during the night hours, and even houses were poorly lit, they were prey to a host of superstitions.

The same “farmer’s wife” describes awakening one night on hearing a noise outside, creeping downstairs to find Sarah the maidservant scattering seed by the straw stack and reciting aloud: “Hempseed I sowe, and he thats my true love cum to me nowe.”

Sarah’s notion was that a young carter’s lad who walked where she had thrown her seed, “his big feet crumping it, the smell thereof would reach his nose and so make him to turn to her from all the other wenches”.

The farmer’s wife wrote: “This set me thinking of how I did the same thing before I did marrie John, me being sillie likewise.”

Failure to marry was a disaster for almost every woman. Do you remember Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth Bennet’s friend in Pride And Prejudice? She accepted that pompous ass Mr Collins, because to an ageing spinster of 27 he seemed to offer her only chance of fulfilment.

One of the most touching scenes in Cranford occurs when Miss Matty hears of the death of her middle-aged lover and knows that her own lonely fate is finally sealed.

She had previously forbidden Martha, her servant girl, to have any “followers”. Now, however, she relents. If there is a respectable young man, she says, he may come once a week: “God forbid that I should grieve any young hearts.”

Martha answers eagerly: “Please ma’am, there’s Jem Hearn, and he’s a joiner making three-and-sixpence a day, and six foot one in his stockinged feet. Please ma’am; and if you’ll ask about him tomorrow morning, everyone will give him a character for steadiness.”

Elizabeth Gaskell concluded: “Though Miss Matty was startled, she submitted to Fate And Love.”

The author herself married a Unitarian minister, with whom she reared four children and buried three more before her early death at 55, in 1865.

She was also a passionate social reformer. The plight of the Victorian poor loomed large in her stories, especially her first novel, Mary Barton, set in a cruel new industrial metropolis, based on a Manchester she knew all too well.

Most of her fans, including me, love Wives And Daughters best among her books.

Subtitled “an everyday story”, it is a superbly observed chronicle of the small town life which she knew so well, centred upon the affairs of the local doctor, Mr Gibson, his daughter, Molly, and second wife, the stepmother from hell.

Having described Hollingford, the little community in which they lived, Mrs Gaskell writes: “Molly grew up among these quiet people in calm monotony of life.”

The author perfectly recognised the limitations of Hollingford, Cranford and their kind, places that look so pretty and “unspoilt” when brought before us today on television screens.

The existences of their inhabitants would seem stultifyingly boring to us today.

They saw little of anyone apart from each other. There was no heating save open fires in even the grandest houses, no constant hot water, no indoor sanitation, no switches to turn on comforts.

Their diet was dull enough, especially in winter, when they depended upon preserved and smoked food in the absence of most fresh produce, and of course of fridges and freezers.

Even those of us who like riding as a pastime would not much care to be reliant upon horses for transport, as they were, through wind, rain and snow.

Think of the botheration involved in bridling and saddling a beast every time one wanted to go anywhere.

To be sure, there were servants. But almost every daily task took two, three, four times as long as it demands in our own times.

Yet for all their frustrations, privations, and petty feuds, what contentment many people achieved!

Mary Russell Mitford, for all her genteel poverty, ended her own chronicle in 1832: “Farewell, then, my beloved village!

“The long, straggling street, gay and bright in this sunny, windy April morning, full of all the implements of dirt and noise, men, women, children, cows, horses, waggons, carts, pigs, dogs, geese and chicken; busy, merry, stirring little world …The neighbours of neighbours, the friends of friends… what I shall do without you, I cannot easily imagine.”

Miss Mitford, like Mrs Gaskell, understood the joy of belonging.

In Cranford, the coming of the great new railway presents, in the eyes of imaginative people, wonderful opportunities.

But it also promised to thrust a haste and movement into their lives which must change them for ever, and of course did so.

Today, we possess prosperity, freedoms, comforts beyond the dreams of the inhabitants of Cranford in 1842.

But we bask in the portrayal of their little world on our screens, because we perceive there a stability and continuity, a sharing of pleasures and burdens, which we have lost.

Though we travel so much, each of us has become an island, remote from our neighbours. Few of us want to be transported to live in 19th-century Cranford.

But we love to be privileged visitors, glimpsing good things gone from our own modern lives.