I’ve now watched this Andrew Davies adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s last novel at least three times over the years (it might even be four), and my admiration grows each time. I think it must be one of his very greatest TV adaptations, up there with his takes on Middlemarch, Pride and Prejudice and Vanity Fair - and it is yet another one from the late 1990s, a period which saw an extraordinary flowering of classic adaptations. All the cast are superb, with my very favourite performances coming from Francesca Annis and Michael Gambon. For me, Wives and Daughters is Gaskell’s masterpiece, and this is a version which does it justice. Sadly she didn’t live to write the last few pages of her novel, but I rather like the ending this mini-series supplies – though I’ll discuss that at the end!
This mini-series looks beautiful, set in the countryside throughout (apart from brief glimpses of Cynthia in London and Roger in Africa), with endless shots of sweeping green landscapes and country houses. Director Nicholas Renton also made the fine 1998 version of Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd, which has a similar feeling for country scenery. However, like his FFTMC, this isn’t just an idyllic picture of country life – it is made clear how characters are hemmed in and how difficult it is for anyone to escape the atmosphere of gossip and all the little rules governing village society. Wives and Daughters doesn’t deal with changing times as overtly as North and South, but the theme is still there, as is class conflict. The Squire in particular is clinging to the past while everything changes around him.
For anyone who hasn’t read the book or seen the mini-series, the story centres on a doctor’s daughter, Molly Gibson, who gains a new step-mother and step-sister, Hyacinth and Cynthia, when her father remarries – and on the tensions within this ill-assorted instant family. However, if you haven’t read/seen it, you’d be best not to read on until you have, as I’ll be discussing aspects of the whole plot – and also, as with North and South, you have a great double treat in store from the book and film.:)
Anna Maguire as the young Molly
The opening shot of the series sticks in my mind as a striking evocation of many of its main themes, as the young Molly (Anna Maguire) looks at a caterpillar crawling across a green leaf – but is called away. This gives a feeling of how Molly will be fascinated by science all through the mini-series, something she shares with Roger and of course with her father as a doctor - but how she will rarely have much time or space to pursue these interests. The caterpillar on the leaf also gives a feeling of a worm in the bud, suggesting that there are threats even in this beautiful landscape. And, of course, a caterpillar always looks forward to a butterfly – so a glimpse of one suggests how this drama will be about a young woman coming of age. There are quite a few striking images of insects running through this mini-series – I’ll mention a couple that I noticed along the way, though there are probably loads more I didn’t!
In any case, after this opening, there is a brief episode where the young Molly feels unwell during a day out at an event at the grand home of Lady Cumnor (Barbara Leigh-Hunt) and the Cumnors’ governess, widow Hyacinth Claire Kirkpatrick (Francesca Annis) is imperiously ordered to take care of her. Hyacinth lets Molly sleep in her bed, surreptitiously herself eating the plate of goodies provided for the youngster - but then forgets all about her. The child misses her lift home and nearly has to stay at The Towers overnight, until her father, Dr Gibson (Bill Paterson) turns up to collect her. As often with childhood scenes at the start of dramas, this brief sequence establishes important things about the characters – the strong relationship between father and daughter, and the self-centredness which is a key quality of Hyacinth’s despite her surface charm. She forgets about Molly as soon as she is out of sight – yet the official version of the story becomes that she was very kind to the little girl.
Bill Paterson and Justine Waddell as Molly and her father
On Hyacinth eating Molly’s food, I was interested in Andrew Davies’ comment (taken from the Eras of Elegance website which has loads of background information, press handouts etc about this drama): “We had quite a little debate about that incident. When I read it in the book, I was thinking that she was eating it up herself so that Lady Harriet’s kindness wouldn’t be seen to have been wasted. But all the women who were working on the production said, no, that this is a big symbolic event, and that Mrs. Kirkpatrick is going to eventually consume all of Molly’s happiness. It’s a symbolic kind of eating.”
It strikes me, though, that Davies’ original interpretation is right too – as a governess, Hyacinth is used to trying to turn events so that they will please Lady Cumnor, and to trying to hide and smooth away her own needs and desires. Eating in secret is just right. Lady Cumnor is rather like a more fretful and less terrifying version of Austen’s Lady Catherine de Bourgh – she has the same way of blithely assuming that people are her possessions and she can order them about and arrange their lives for them. The way she has changed Hyacinth’s name to “Claire” as more suitable is an example of this – there are a lot of masters and mistresses in 19th-century novels who change their servants’ and dependents’ names, and it is always a way of showing who is master. Having said that, I think the main point about the name is that Hyacinth shows her pretentious nature by preferring the fancy name (cultivated flower) to the more simple one.
Penelope Wilton and Justine Waddell
After this opening, the series switches to Molly as a young woman, beautifully played by Justine Waddell, who also played Tess in ITV’s adaptation of Tess of the d’Urbervilles the previous year. When Dr Gibson is forced to realise that Molly is growing up, after one of his medical students makes a clumsy attempt to court her, he sends her away to visit the nearby Hamley family – determinedly old-fashioned Squire Hamley (Michael Gambon) and his sickly, upper-crust wife (Penelope Wilton). Molly is soon taking the place of their little daughter who died, and builds a strong relationship with both of them and their two sons, poetic Osborne (Tom Hollander) and down-to-earth scientist Roger (Anthony Howell). All the members of this family love each other deeply, but they can’t talk to each other properly and misunderstandings abound, with painful rifts opening up when the Squire hears that Osborne has been raising money against his expectations -and, even more so, when Osborne does badly in his exams at Cambridge. I think Gambon and Hollander give wonderfully sensitive performances as a father and son who have just about nothing in common and are almost speaking different languages to one another – but who, nevertheless, both long to make the other one understand, to find some point of contact.
Molly is devastated when she learns that, during her visit to the Hamleys, her father has arranged to marry Hyacinth – a woman she instinctively shrinks from, who is extremely liable to say something appalling every time she opens her mouth. Francesca Annis is one of the great costume drama actresses - she is a tragic figure as Lady Ludlow in Cranford, but in Wives and Daughters gives an equally fine comic performance as the social-climbing, utterly self-centred mother who keeps her own daughter, Cynthia, at arms’ length lest she should be outshone, and who constantly calculates on whether other people will live or die in order to work out her daughter’s marital chances. Of course, many people in the 19th century did make just these kinds of calculations, but Hyacinth is very obvious about it – encouraging Cynthia to reject younger brother Roger Hamley one minute, and to accept him the next, when it looks as if his older brother Osborne may be terminally ill.
Keeley Hawes as Cynthia
Hyacinth is really a comic monster, however soft-spoken and charming she may seem. Her daughter, Cynthia, played by Keeley Hawes, shares her charm and some of her shallowness – she openly says that she can’t love people, and she enjoys being admired and breaking hearts even if she has no intention of taking a suitor seriously. Molly’s heart is one of those to be broken when Roger – a brilliant scientist said to have been based on Gaskell’s cousin, Charles Darwin - falls in love with Cynthia and proposes to her before heading off on a scientific expedition to Africa.
The whole love triangle here reminds me very much of Fanny, Edmund and Mary Crawford in Austen’s Mansfield Park. Molly’s love for Roger has grown up slowly and unromantically through shared interests (he gave her a wasps’ nest – another insect moment), but his love for Cynthia is instant and based on her looks and charm rather than any real similarity between them. However, Gaskell makes Cynthia far more sympathetic than Austen’s Mary, who is nearly as self-centred as Hyacinth. Cynthia might be fickle, and bored by Roger’s scientific interests just as Mary is by Edmund’s desire to go into the Church – but her lonely childhood is to blame for a lot of it. Despite everything, there is something warm about her, and there is a real sense of sisterhood between her and Molly.
In general, Gaskell doesn’t tend to draw her characters in black and white – even Hyacinth has her good points, and the awful land agent Mr Preston, who tries to bully and blackmail Cynthia into marrying him, nevertheless has a certain poignancy because of his unrequited love. To go off at a slight tangent, I found it surprising that Preston is played by Iain Glen, who is probably the most conventionally handsome man in the mini-series and has played heroes like George Eliot’s Adam Bede - but he is great at giving depth to the character and avoiding any danger of him being a two-dimensional villain.
Anthony Howell as Roger Hamley on his voyage
While Roger is away on his voyage, brilliantly coloured footage of his experiences is intercut with footage of the village, and voiceovers from his letters show how little he and Cynthia really know of each other. Meanwhile, his brother, Osborne has his own battles to fight, as he can’t bring himself to tell his prejudiced father that he is married to a French wife, and one from a lower-class background. With tragic irony, the only thing that could possibly reconcile the Squire to such a daughter-in-law is the thing that actually happens – his son Osborne’s death. The scene of him lying dead on the ground, with an insect crawling over his mouth, is one of the most haunting moments in the whole mini-series, recalling that caterpillar in the opening scene. A worm is certainly in the bud here. Gambon’s portrayal of Hamley’s grief at the loss of his son and his guilt over his own behaviour is absolutely riveting – probably the scenes which have stuck in my mind the most from previous viewings.
At the ending of the book, it is clear that Molly and Roger are intended for one another, but they are kept apart by a fever scare and he can only wave to her through the window before heading back to Africa. Gaskell did not live to write the last few pages which would have given them a happy ending, probably on his return to England. In the series, Davies speeds things up by making Molly run out of the house in the rain to declare her love to Roger before he goes away - this echoes countless films and dramas where there is a final scene of one lover running to reach the other, but it is still just as effective for all that. Then there is a final shot of the two of them in Africa together, with her joining him on his exploration. I’m sure Gaskell wouldn’t have written this ending and that Molly would have been left to wait in the village for her explorer to return, but I really like the glimpse of them together on the sands, sharing their love for science at last.
Michael Gambon and Bill Paterson
Here you are again, Judy, with an incredible review! So informative and personal at the same time. As you know, I love Gaskell and I have both read and seen Wives and Daughters. I think this is her best novel, indeed. Pity that she couldn’t finish it. Like you, I also loved watching and re-watching this series. It’s definitely one of my favourite.
Have a great weekend and … don’t forget to have a look at my blog later on tonight!
Hugs
MG
Thank you very much, Maria – I was a bit worried I wouldn’t be able to think of anything to say, but the opposite was the problem in the end, and there is loads more I could have said!
Beautiful and informative review of the series, thank you! It’s one of –or perhaps my favorite period drama, it teeters with the 1995 Austen adaptations and Middlemarch but is always one of the top two. ;)
Thank you very much, Katherine – I find it hard to decide which period dramas are my favourites as there are so many, but this is definitely one of the best!
Wonderful review! Just when I think that is all you open another dimension to the story. Love Elizabeth Gaskell’s works especially N&S. FFTMC is also another favorite reading also gives one a personal connection. I have watched and re-watched these and always find something new.
Thanks!
Thanks for the kind comments – I agree you can find something new each time you read one of these novels, or watch the adaptation again.
Wonderful review, Judy. You’re spot on regarding the caterpillar in the opening scene. I first interpreted Clare’s eating of the food as something that she might not get a chance to indulge wholeheartedly when surrounded by the Lord and Lady Cumnor and their children.
You’re also right on the multi dimensionality of the characters, even Mrs Gibson has her good qualities, she was self reliant and it seems she suffered a heartbreak (Preston)
Most of this series for me is about secrets that are kept from the other characters (in fact Molly seems the recipient whether willing or not of many of these secrets) It all starts with the secret courting letter sent by Mr. Coxe and this sets the story in motion. The Dr. sends Molly away without explaining (“Papa, you’re getting mysterious again!”) While Molly is away, Dr. Gibson reacquaints himself with Mrs. Kirkpatrick, a former governess at The Towers, and proposes to her in one of the most awkward love scenes I have ever seen. Molly is taken aback by this and the fact that her father decided to do this behind her back (“I was sent away so this could be quietly arranged”)
The next important secret in the story is the one belonging to Osborne, he knows he’s to marry a good girl from a good English family, yet he has married and has a child with a French former nursery maid who is a Roman Catholic (the Squire hates French people “I’d rather keep snakes in the house”)
Cynthia has another secret. She has been engaged to Mr. Preston since she was fifteen and has managed to keep it a secret though now Mr. Preston wants to make her keep her promise and is threatening to show the world her letters to him.
How Mrs Gibson learns about Osborne medical condition is also another secret (a secret the doctor has to keep and she had no business into prying) and it’s similar (though in this case by accident) of how Molly learns about Osborne’s wife.
But, there is a character that I’m completely fascinated by and in love with, and that’s Lady Harriet. She is educated, beautiful and extremely clever. She’s a politician who knows how to sway public opinion, in fact she mentions votes (Charity Ball scene where she apologises about their late arrival) She has her parents, Lord and Lady Cumnor, as well as her brother, Lord Hollingford, wrapped around her little finger. She knows what her powers are and she knows how to get people to do exactly what she wants. She is a cleverer version of Emma Woodhouse with the wit and intelligence to read and understand the people around her. Before going to Mr and Mrs Gibson’s wedding Lady Harriet says something disrespectful about the Misses Browning and Molly gets upset and admonishes her. Lady Harriet, probably for the first time, encountered some form of rebuke, and in keeping with her independent spirit befriends Molly. Very much like Mr. Bell in North and South, Lady Harriet meddles with those beneath her to help Molly and to have her married to Roger. After the incident with Mr. Preston and Cynthia, Molly has damaged her reputation and her supposed relationship with Preston is talked around in Hollingford. Lady Harriet learns this, but understands that Molly is not involved with Preston, and correctly guesses that Cynthia was the woman involved with the land agent (“Clare’s daughter is the real heroine of this story”) She confronts Preston and learns the whole truth of the attachment between him and Cynthia. She even admonishes him for putting Molly’s reputation at risk.
Judy, it seems I wrote another novel. I’m truly sorry. It’s just that I saw this adaptation recently in anticipation of your review and lots of thoughts on it.
Thank you for your sensitive and detailed comments, Ailatan – much appreciated, and it is great that we watched this mini-series at the same time. I do agree that the story is full of secrets – another one is Hyacinth’s own past relationship with Mr Preston, which is never completely made clear.
I must also agree with you that the proposal by Dr Gibson to Hyacinth is incredibly awkward – from the moment of their engagement it is already clear how little they know of each other and that they are both expecting something very different from what the other one intends to give.
I hadn’t thought about Lady Harriet as much as you have, but the comparison with Emma is interesting – I can see they both want to be in charge and know what everyone around them is up to. Now that you have made the comparison, I suppose the incident you mention where Lady Harriet mocks the Miss Brownings is in a way her Box Hill moment, though not as painful because the sisters don’t actually hear her – however she does go round to see them in order to compensate, like Emma with Miss Bates.
Again, thanks!
Thanks for the review. I am a Victorian drama fan. I will watch it surely.
I am sure you will enjoy it!
A very full descriptive review evoking the characters, places, stories, themes. I think it very like Davies’s Pride and Prejudice, richer in psychological depth. Vanity Fair seems to me different (satiric) and Middlemarch too (though it’s hard to say why briefly except the real historical feel say in the paratexts comes to mind).
To add to Maria’s comments: along with secrets, the themes include sickness and silence. The secrets and silence make people sick — as Osborne becomes. Cynthia swears Molly to silence and almost destroys her. Mrs Hamley grows ill and dies partly because she keeps secret and silent how much of her life is repression to her. Hyacinth’s silences are ugly and manipulative. You could say Gaskell is for openness, candour (though she recognizes one cannot always be that way).
These are Austen’s themes in Sense and Sensibility: Marianne grows sick, Elinor sworn to silence, secrets everywhere, so too Jane Fairfax. Maybe they are romance themes.
Ellen
A little more this morning in reply: Davies has so many kinds of films; there really are a great variety. Just now I’m watching his _To Serve Them All My Days_, a mini-series from the 1970s set in WW1 about a veteran, at first shell-shocked, who becomes a schoolmaster in an old public school. He is strong anti-war, and among other things, fights against building a monument to the war (funds provided by someone who made money selling arms). I’ve also recently watched his _Falling_, a brilliant adaptation of a Jane Elizabeth Howard novel.
When Judy says she likes P&P and W&D, she’s really singling out a specific type of drama Davies does, the most recent being Little Dorrit and Sense and Sensibility. I’m not sure which of this type are my favorites, but maybe it’s Daniel Deronda and Dr Zhivago — emotional, realistic stories.
I used to think his _Vanity Fair_ was truest to his gifts (satiric, burlesque, social-critique), and so then _The Way We Live Now_, but now I’m not sure. I was recently very moved by his _Line of Beauty_ and _Room with a View_, delving unconventional (gay and heterosexual which crosses class boundaries) sexuality.
Ellen Moody
Dear Ellen, thank you very much for all your comments – I haven’t as yet seen ‘Falling’ or ‘To Serve Them All My Days’ – however, I do like many more of Davies’ dramas beyond those I mentioned and am not really sure which are my favourites either. It probably changes depending on what I have watched most recently.:) As you say, he has made a great variety – and I do hope that despite all the cutbacks to TV drama more of his work makes it to the screen soon.
I’m interested in the link you make between secrets and sickness, which, it strikes me, could apply to characters in other Gaskell novels too – like Phillis hiding her love in ‘Cousin Phillis’, and developing a “brain fever” as a result.
The dance scenes in this did remind me a lot of Davies’ ‘Pride and Prejudice’ – I often find dance scenes in mini-series very moving, as they seem to be moments when you really see characters’ emotions coming to the surface, both those dancing and those watching from the sidelines.
Judy
Dear Judy,
I just watched another Davies — with Pivcevic (they did S&S, Dr Zhivago, Little Dorrit togther): Othello, Shakespeare’s play brought into contemporary society, a kind of closely analogous adaptation. It’s a powerful surreal thriller. One can recognize a certain strong style and character types (Iago is evil in the way of Henry Kent in Falling and also Crawley pere in Vanity Fair), but this takes Davies in a new direction. Renaissance plays are not realistic; and this new Othello was written as if Davies asked himself what situation could bring about the same results. Davies kept the race theme strong: Jago resents working for a black man; Desie Kealey Hawes) is terrified of John Othello when he falls into a jealous rage (egged on by Jago). A new set of themes.
I was thinking secrets and silence do not always bring sickness. I watched Ang Lee’s Wedding Banquet tonight and the threesome (2 gay men and 1 heterosexual woman) lie to the hero’s parents; by the end they are found out but everyone keeps up the lie — out of kindness. So I suppose it’s the moral soundness of the motives behind the lies and secrecy and silence that matter.
It is though romance theme and webs of deceit create much pain in Wives and Daughters and Cousin Phillis.
Does Gaskell use dance scenes? I can’t remember any — Davies adds them to Trollope novels as if he had found how useful and effective they are from Austen :)
Too tired to say any more now,
Ellen
I just finished watching “WIVES AND DAUGHTERS”. It’s a well made miniseries. But . . . the romance between Molly Gibson and Roger Hamley did not strike me as well written. And it seemed to end on a weak note.
Glad you thought it was well made, but a pity you were disappointed by the ending – I suppose Roger falling in love with Molly is a bit abrupt, but to be honest that didn’t worry me all that much. I find it probably less so than Edmund falling in love with Fanny in ‘Mansfield Park’. It’s a pity we don’t have Gaskell’s ending, but the ending in this adaptation worked well for me. Thank you for commenting.
I loved the review and comments about Wives and Daughters. So many things I hadn’t thought about until brought to light. I always assumed the “eating” part was included because Hyacinth is so conscious of food perhaps in regard to her personal tastes or as women today don’t want to be seen today eating too much. She mentions not allowing Mr. Gibson to eat cheese and bread later to molly and at least in the movie (I can’t recall in the book) the other Dr. called in seems to say something about her lack of eating or eating habits. So I just never questioned it. The whole movie was done so well..as you all brought out. I also never thought of the whole love triange thing as someone mentioned in comparing Mansfield Park. I never saw it the same since Edmund succumbed to Mary for awhile it didn’t seem to motivate anything in my mind. And whereas Molly and Cynthia were relatively young and naive women Mary Crawford definitely was not. I felt she was a more wordly and despicable. I do feel you get the real sense of a small community and how wrapped up in each other’s lives they are. I do love “North and South” however as much. I think “Wives and Daughters” tells so many small stories interwoven into one big one. “North and South” does also but is more involved in the current events (or industrial revolution) of the time. So the other characters stand out but not in the same way they do in “Wives and Daughters”. North and South was a harder read for me than Wives and Daughters. Due to the dialect difference but so very interesting anyway. Thank you all for being so enlightening.
Thanks very much for your interesting comments, Sue, and glad you have enjoyed the discussion. I agree with you that Hyacinth probably doesn’t want to be seen eating and indulging herself – she prefers to do it in private, and I do remember that disapproval of cheese. I do also really like ‘North and South’.
I’m watching “WIVES AND DAUGHTERS” again and something just came to me. And it’s going to sound rather harsh.
While watching the scene involving Molly’s argument with Mr. Preston about Cynthia, it occurred to me that Molly could be rather stupid when it comes to her stepsister.
I like Cynthia, but she had used Molly to intervene on her behalf regarding Mr. Preston. And Molly apparently lacked the brains to realize this. Worse, she seemed incapable of realizing that Cynthia had used Mr. Preston to acquire money for a new party dress. Even after learning from Cynthia that the latter had lied about her relationship – or lack of one – with Mr. Preston in the past.
I supposed one could call Molly simply naive . . . or stupid. At times, I’m inclined to regard the latter. But whatever her defect, it seemed to me that she hid it behind an attitude of moral outrage.
Interesting comments – thank you for returning to this posting after watching the series again. I think I tend to see Molly as naive and idealistic rather than stupid, and I find it believable that she wants to believe the best of Cynthia, even when all the evidence points in the opposite direction. Reading your thoughts, it strikes me that Molly is able to read Hyacinth’s motivation far more accurately than she can read Cynthia’s, even though in some ways the mother and daughter are like older and younger versions of the same charming but selfish character.
I see Cynthia not as a younger version of her mother. She has no intention of “catching” either Roger or Osborne Hamley, and when her mother talks about Osborne’s death and speculates about the consequences, Cynthia is honestly shocked. She is different from her mother, and when Mr Gibson fails to realize it, she is too proud to explain herself (I remember that this is also the way it is written in the book).
Cynthia IMO is damaged by a dysfunctional relationship with her mother. Her longing memories of her father (another secret she keeps “nobody thinks I remember him but I do”) seem to me a key to her character.
In the book, it is quite clear that Hyacinth’s egoistic requests have caused her husband’s death. Davies doesn’t follow that motif but he makes clear that Cynthia’s childhood security ended when her father died. “She sent me away when I might have clung to her”.
Molly has always had a strong anchor in her father’s unconditional love, Cynthia has not. She has been neglected by her mother, and when her mother saw her as a rival, she pushed her aside (as Lady Harriet well understands when she remarks upon Cynthia’s absence at the wedding).
Cynthia is looking for a warm spot, for love, for a father replacement. We don’t know whether her husband can give her that, he seems to be smitten with her. The main point of her marrying him seems to me that he takes her back into the surroundings of her father’s family, the Kirkpatricks in London. This is the only place where she feels she belongs.
She is not considerate enough towards Molly and fails to realize the risks of her requests. She also suffers when she feels that Molly regards her with less admiration than in the beginning, and their relationship cools a bit.
She is a complex character, much more complex than her mother. She is in need of love and I’m always sorry for her when I see how much Mr. Gibson loves Molly, and how critical he is of Cynthia. Had he given Cynthia a more fatherly kind of support, maybe the whole Mr. Preston story would have evolved differently. Cynthia longs for a father’s love but neither Mr. Hamley nor Mr. Gibson can give it to her.
I love Gaskell for the complexity of her characters. I think Keeley Hawes does a wonderful job conveying the deep insecurity of Cynthia, her craving for love and attention, and her moments of insight and honesty (only when she feels accepted and loved).
And the adaptation does such a good job in showing the world of the women – the world of haberdashing and sewing for Mrs Gibson and Cynthia, as opposed to Molly who loves the natural world.
Another thing I like very much is the impressive way in which the houses play out social class and character of the main protagonists: the house of the working man Mr. Gibson, comfortable, functional and intimate. The house of the Hamleys, old, dark, much wood and brown – only Mrs. Hamley’s rooms are a bit lighter. And the splendid world of The Towers where the Cumnors live, with their brightly lit huge interiors. The working man, the Gentry, the Nobility.
Thank you very much for your detailed comments on this series, Lila. I do agree that Cynthia is not the same in character as Hyacinth – I think there are some similarities, in particular the way they are both constantly keen to charm people – but Cynthia is much warmer and not so calculating. She enters into the engagement with Roger because she wants to be loved, not because she is calculating on getting the estate. This ties in with what you say about her longing for a father’s love.
I’m also very interested in your comments about the world of sewing for Hyacinth and Cynthia, as opposed to the natural world for Molly – and I do agree on the contrast between the houses bringing out the contrast between the characters, something which is there in the novel too.
Wonderful review of a magnificent miniseries. I prefer North and South the book of the two Gaskell’s I’ve read, but this is my favorite of the television adaptations. For me, the real power of Gaskell’s writing here, and transferred well by Davies and the director, is the nuanced way characters are never either perfectly evil or good (with the possible exception of Molly).
Waddell’s performance, along with Anna Maxwell-Martin’s Esther in Bleak House and Claire Foy’s Amy in Little Dorrit, make me extremely frustrated that Davies was never given Mansfield Park. Clearly he can adapt a virtuous heroine without making her insipid, and his scripts attract fantastically talented actresses. But instead Waddell was wasted in Rozema’s MP as a practically cardboard Julia, whilst Rozema and Wadey tore Fanny apart and put in place a stereotypical spunky Disney princess (no fault on Billie Piper and Frances O’Connor, who are both quite talented).
I think there are some similarities, in particular the way they are both constantly keen to charm people – but Cynthia is much warmer and not so calculating.
I feel otherwise. Regardless of her faults, Hyacinth never used anyone the way Cynthia used both Molly and Mr. Preston. Cynthia simply knew how to hide her calculating manner a lot better than her mother.