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heathermday
Reviews
The Night Manager (2016)
Great adaptation of a great author
I'm a big fan of John Le Carre's writing and I enjoy watching each adaptation as they come along. The Night Manager is a gorgeous production that differs from the book in many ways but is still very much in the spirit of the book.
I've read The Night Manager twice and the novel really has some problems - the long section in Canada is really tedious, and the Caribbean/Central America setting is pretty cheesy. The adaptation actually improves on the book and, I should add, Le Carre loved the adaptation. Fabulous cast and briliiantly acted. Tom Hiddleston, Elizabeth Debicki, Hugh Laurie, Tom Hollander, David Harewood, Olivia Colman and others, they're all perfect.
The Crown (2016)
Sublime
Every episode of The Crown is like a beautiful piece of theatre that could stand in its own right. The cast is perfection, the script is so intelligent and it looks stunning. It's perfection.
I don't know where to start with the cast - Claire Foy and Olivia Colman have both been wonderful as Queen Elizabeth II, as have Matt Smith and Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip. Loved Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher - anyone who thinks her performance is over the top obviously has no experience of Thatcher from the time.
Can't wait to see Imelda Staunton and Dominic West in the new series! Bring it on.
Midsomer Murders: Echoes of the Dead (2011)
Good creepy Midsomer fun!
This is a great episode with a great cast. One of Midsomer's creepiest villages, which is really saying something! Liking John and Sarah Barnaby very much, as although I don't know why he had to buy so many cup hooks in the weird shop. Love Sykes.
Dalgliesh: The Black Tower - Part One (2021)
Very enjoyable, faithful to the book!
I loved this adaptation. It looks utterly gorgeous and really captures the landscapes described in the book. Bertie Carvel is perfect and I actually prefer his portrayal to Roy Marsden or Martin Shaw (although I enjoy them all). I've read the book several times and am generally a big fan of PD James's detective novels.
For those complaining that it's dour and miserable, the book "The Black Tower" is very dour indeed and is actually quite a strange book - an interesting choice for the first series! PD James seemed to find disabilities quite distasteful, and this comes through in her writing for this book and Unnatural Causes. So that's weird, but doesn't reduce my enjoyment.