"That Would Never Happen!" Dan and Ali write the real reviews of UK TV drama serials (stuff marketed as quality, if you please), telling it like it is rather than the my-mate's-the-director, I-get-party-invites, or the I-need-my-job reviews that often appear. Not to mention the I've-not-watched-it....
Wednesday, 26 September 2012
The Paradise
Prepare to suspend disbelief. Emile Zola wrote 'Lark Rise to Candleford'. If you don't believe it, you'll have to forget that Zola wrote the novel that 'The Paradise' is based on, because Bill Gallagher wrote both and the similarities far outnumber the differences. Even the casts have names in common. We are sure that this wasn't given a Sunday scheduling because 'Lark Rise...' fans would get confused.
Now don't get us wrong, one half of us quite liked the story of Laura Timmins and co. as comforting Sunday night fayre, and this is shaping up nicely to be equally camp and clunking. Young Denise (Joanna Vanderham) fetches up from an erstwhile Lark Rise, arriving doe-eyed and clueless in a bigger, brighter version of Candleford's haberdashery store, which happens to be run by a handsome devil with dimples and a moustache which ought to twirl. She may be naive, but by golly she's a natural!
If you don't know what happens next, you need to stay in more. There's lots of frills, gossip, and snobbery, and so far no-one except Denise is better than they ought to be. Forget Zola, or you'll be in trouble. Think 'Lark Rise...' with a dash of 'Downton' and smidgens of what you've heard about the origins of Selfridges, Liberty, Whiteley's, Swan and Edgar and Fortnum. Can't see this winning Emmys, or winning a new audience for heaving corsets, but it adds a warm hazy glow to autumn evenings.
Labels:
BBC1,
Bill Gallagher,
costume drama,
David Hayman,
elaine cassidy,
Emile Zola,
Joanna Vanderham,
Sarah Lancashire,
TV,
UK
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