Mapp & Lucia

Another drama that pretty much eschewed younger actors and characters (see earlier) was Steve Pemberton's adaptation of EF Benson's Mapp & Lucia.

Previously adapted in the 1980s with Prunella Scales, Geraldine McEwan & Nigel Hawthorne (which neither of us saw), the new version had Miranda Richardson, Anna Chancellor, and Pemberton as Mapp, Lucia, and Lucia's friend Georgie Pillson. 

Lucia and Georgie move to Tilling to spend the summer, Lucia renting a property from Mapp.  An undeclared war then breaks out between the Mapp & Lucia over social influence in the community, with each resorting to dirty tricks to get one up on the other.

In the age of Instagram and Facebook and the sort of social boasting that those two offer it feels very relevant, even through it's 1920s & 30s. 

The other great thing was that it gave meaty roles to a whole host of great actors, like Felicity Montagu, Poppy Miller, Paul Ritter, and Gemma Whelan.

Most credit must go to long-term EF Benson fan Steve Pemberton both for the idea to adapt the stories again, and for coming up with such a brilliant script.  It almost makes you wish that the powers that be give over a special part of the commissioning budget to former members of The League of Gentlemen, given the quality of work that has come from Pemberton, Mark Gatiss (though we remain skeptical of 'Sherlock)', Reece Shearsmith and Jeremy Dyson, and also seek out similarly talented bands of writer-performers to conceive new shows. 

We only got 3 episodes, but given the wealth of material in the original six books, and the flexibility of the concept, we hope that there will be many more to come (there were 10 episodes in the 80s)