Cranford

Composer Carl’s Cranford shock

COMPOSER and conductor Carl Davis is not one to be slowing down, even after more than 40 years at the top of the world of commercial music.

But even he must have got the shock of his life when the BBC decided that the Sunday night costume drama, Cranford (based on three novels by Manchester writer Elizabeth Gaskell), was to go out before Christmas, and not begin in February as originally planned.

Carl was responsible – as he had been Read the rest of this entry »

A source of joy for Matty

SPOILER ALERT: This is a detailed plot description, it may spoil the experience for any viewers and potential viewers.

Cranford Ep 5/5
Sunday 16 December
9.00-10.00pm BBC ONE

Miss Matty’s (Dame Judi Dench) crisis is discussed by the ladies of Cranford in a secret meeting

Jem and Martha Read the rest of this entry »

Dr Harrison visits the Rectory

SPOILER ALERT: This is a detailed plot description, it may spoil the experience for any viewers and potential viewers.
Cranford Ep 4/5
Sunday 9 December
9.00-10.00pm BBC ONE

Dr Frank Harrison (Simon Woods) asks for permission to court Sophy

Miss Matty suffers great disappointment and, in a nostalgic mood one evening, decides to confide in Mary about Mr Holbrook, in the penultimate episode of the drama serial written by Heidi Thomas. She tells Mary how things were put asunder by a trick played by her younger Read the rest of this entry »

What we can learn from the ladies of Cranford

Tomorrow night, for the fourth week running, several million people will settle down by their TVs to watch a Victorian rural saga in which next to nothing happens.

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.

There is not much of a storyline, beyond Read the rest of this entry »

Locksley Hall – Alfred, Lord Tennyson & The Parting Glass

The poem read by Miss Matty at the end of Epidode 3 is Locksley Hall by. Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Thanks to Heidi Thomas.

The song sung by Jack Marshland in the same episode was The Parting Glass. It’s a traditional song, often sung at the end of a gathering of friends. It was allegedly the most popular song sung in both Scotland and Ireland before Robert Burns wrote “Auld Lang Syne”. Thanks to David Wake.

Locksley Hall – Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet ‘t is early morn:
Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn.

‘T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call,
Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;

Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West. Read the rest of this entry »

A return to the glory days of costume drama, courtesy of Elizabeth Gaskell

In the days when I used to whip through Victorian novels as if they were meringues, Cranford was never one of my favourites. I liked my Gaskell to taste of soot and sweat, for the action to take place in Manchester basements with dirt floors, a minimum of 12 coughing inhabitants to every room.

Now, though, I’m in the middle of a thorough rethink. Two decades later, and along comes the BBC with a “lavish” adaptation of Cranford (Sundays, 9pm) which, in spite of all my misgivings, I end up watching and . . . it’s wonderful. Like every other thirtysomething woman I know, I now refuse to leave the house on Sunday nights, and will not do so until this balm to my soul comes to an end. More to the point, I’m wondering: was I wrong? Is Elizabeth Gaskell’s most popular novel also her best, or is it just that this version is so good that it makes you think it must be so? It’s one of the two, I’m sure – though there is a third possibility, which is that I’m simply getting old. And with age comes not only (ha!) wisdom, but a flinching away from unrelenting grimness.

Whatever. The series is great. People are comparing Read the rest of this entry »

Cranford’s mistress drove Dickens to talk of spanking

Thanks to the hit TV drama, a pioneering author of social upheaval is finally getting the recognition she deserves

Elizabeth Gaskell

Nothing much happens in Cranford, the BBC’s lush series that has become one of the most watched costume dramas in recent years. But like the outwardly placid life of its Victorian author, Elizabeth Gaskell, below the tale’s surface swirl dark undercurrents that hint at tragedy, scandal and what might have been.

It is odd to think that Gaskell’s desperate Read the rest of this entry »

Winter Approaches Cranford

SPOILER ALERT: This is a detailed plot description, it may spoil the experience for any viewers and potential viewers.
Cranford Ep 3/5
Sunday 2 December
9:00pm – 10:00pm
BBC1

As winter approaches, Cranford is beset by sorrows and struggles to regain its confidence, in the third episode of the Elizabeth Gaskell drama co-created by Sue Birtwistle and Susie Conklin.

Could Mrs Rose (Lesley Manville) have discovered the start of a crime wave?

When Dr Harrison’s housekeeper, Mrs Rose, discovers a Read the rest of this entry »

Viewers stay true to Cranford

Lavish BBC1 costume drama Cranford continued to captivate viewers on Sunday night, November 25 – virtually equalling its debut by attracting 7.9 million viewers.

The second episode of the costume drama, when its impressive cast including Eileen Atkins and Judi Dench had to deal with a runaway cow and revelations at Lady Ludlow’s garden party, had an audience share of 29% in the 9pm hour – unchanged from its debut last week.

Where gossip is a national treasure

I’ve never read Cranford, and, just between the two of us, neither have you. It’s on our list, though, and has been since we were 18 and first discovered we had a list. Everywhere else in the world, literate Read the rest of this entry »