Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell: Arabella

"I merely asked questions. Surely that is the prerogative of any pupil?"

This is the episode where all turns dark. Strange, up till now both a member of the landed gentry and of the Establishment, hob-nobbing with cabinet ministers and the future Duke of Wellington, has his fall. He is widowed (sort of), disgraced (sort of), imprisoned and well on the way to madness. It is worth asking why Susanna Clarke punishes the character so. Simple narrative reasons? Hubris? Or are there deeper themes at work?

Strange's devastation at the loss of his wife is total. The current breast with his conventional brother-in-law- an old-fashioned country parson who still wears a wig in the late 1810s- is instructive. Strange, at first, seems to be the more together of the two but, while Henry goes through deep mourning and thus finds acceptance, Strange remains obsessed with the resurrection of his wife through magic, and this is his apparent undoing. There is much in this to support the theory that Strange represents the Romantic movement as opposed to the old-fashioned values of the Enlightenment, empiricist philosophy and high Whiggery which can be attributed to Norrell, at least superficially.

But is this too easy a conclusion? Yes, Strange has his archetypal fall, like Prometheus and any number of flawed tragic heroes. But he is an awkward fit with the tragic model, always retaining something of the manner of the unflappable fop, a sort of Sir Percy Blakeney of wizardry. I'll admit it's been almost a decade since I read Susanna Clarke's excellent novel, but both Peter Harness' script and Bertie Carvel's increasingly sublime performance seem to pointedly resist any suggestion of the conventional tragedy. There is also the fact that, as with Lady Pole, we are looking at a tragedy straight out of the darkness of pre-Grimm fairy tales. Perhaps the point is simply that life is capriciously harsh (making faeries a good metaphor) and we must be stoic. But we shal see how my views evolve.

Otherwise, the episode looks sublime, as always, courtesy of Toby Haynes. Bertie Caevel is extraordinary now he is suddenly given more demanding material, fully justifying his recent promotion to the A list of television actors. Both of the two female characters (Arabella and Lady Pole) in this very male world have now  been stripped of all agency by masculine design, quite literally. And we have a failed but very interesting attempt by Strange to reach agreement with Norrell which is stifled by the slimy Lascelles. Increasingly, it is Notrell's view of magic which holds sway in England and, increasingly, Strange is opposed to his Augustan Age reason and neatness. 

Oh, and there's a very interesting meeting between Strange and Childermass in which Norrell's manservant shows just how aware and able he is: potentially as great as either of the two magicians, he is hobbled by his social class. 

We end, though, with Strange at a seemingly low ebb, seeking faeries and madness. Once again this is a splendid piece of telly, written and shot to avoid the obvious readings and make the viewer think. Two episodes left...

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell: All the Mirrors of the World

A guest post once again from MrVortexOfDoom, whose YouTube us most definitely worth a look for those of us who like to see excellent reconstructions of '60s Doctor Who. We will be splitting Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell between us. So, without further ado...

Jealousy Shines Through

Episode 4: All the Mirrors Of The World – 

an alternative review by MrVortexOfDOOM.

“You must learn to live as I do - in the face of constant criticism, opposition and censure. That, sir, is the English way”

Storytelling 101 states that, in any adaptation, screenplay or script, your start should be strong and your ending should be sharp and clean, possibly one that not many people expect. But they never say much about the middles. They are the great unknown of fiction and storytelling. So, if, in my mind, you get all the threads to meet up with not much casualty of plot, you are doing pretty well.

Episode Four is the midpoint, the point where the show is treading water, ready for its explosive last episodes. Or that’s how it should be. However, by a very clever sleight of hand (worthy of Vinculus himself), the series merges three key elements (which normally could bog down the script) into a dynamic sequence propelling you into the second half. From Gatcombe and Tantony (the Nottinghamshire brewers) to the King's Roads and beyond to Drawlight's unveiling is a fantastic sequence which must have been a nightmare to edit being as it is a mix of little-glimpsed sequences, episode parts, asides and nuances.

Plus, the episode has to introduce the major theme of madness in magic by the back door while keeping all the existing strands alive. Strange's trip through the Kings Roads for the first time. Lady Pole being sent to Segundus & Honeyfoot's Starecross (which I believe is referred to as the madhouse/asylum/Bedlam for the first time). Drawlight and Lascelles as Norrell's Jekyll and Hyde continuing their campaign of spite and manipulation. Plus the massive revelations with George the Third, which, here, is edited down to the bare bones, but still manages to keep some of its menace. 

In the promo pictures before the series aired, the bloody Childermass image at the location of the Hanged Man had a mirror instead of a face. And the country scene on the inside of the piano looked exactly like one of the bridges on the King's Roads between our land and the land of Faerie. It is true that you learn something every time you watch.

The series also continues to reward you with the entrancing mix of humour and practical drama. The practical natural aspects of the summoning spell. Colquhoun Grant being hilariously professional in the background while Jonathan and Arabella are having their domestic. The reference to the Cinques Dragownes (the magical court) which takes up a hefty chapter of the book.

And the acting gongs which this week go for me to Edward Hogg & Brian Pettifer as Segundus and Honeyfoot as Starecross gets its dynamite first client. Love John all serious, dressed up in his evil doctor's white coat. 

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The picture of John Uskglass in the King's palace manages to be spooky, prescient and yet a precise summary of the last three episodes all at once. You feel that only a superior natural magician of high standing and power could perform the miracles that we have so far seen. But with the frosting of the mirrors, the boundaries between the worlds are cracking – and nothing will be the same again.

VoD 2015

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell: The Education of a Magician

"Can a magician kill a man by magic?"

"I suppose a magician might. But a gentleman never could."

And on we go. More creative direction from Toby Haynes, more faithful adaptation of the novel by Peter Harness and more top notch villainy from Marc Warren. This continues to be a superb piece of television fantasy for all the reasons mentioned previously. And now we're getting to the really good bits. Jonathan Strange's adventures in the Peninsular War were always my favourite part of the novel, and they're just as extraordinary here.

Norrell, back at home, is rather passive, but malevolently so. He intercepts the letters between Mr and Mrs Strange lest he lose control of information, and he callously informs Mrs Pole of her awful fate, and the fact that he will not help her, and sends Childermass to destroy her rather nice tapestry. She is collateral damage in the cause of "respectability". Yet Norrell does not come across as evil, merely obsessive and addicted to missing the point, a bit like a bad boss.

Strange, meanwhile, is slowly learning, in Portugal, to rely less on books and structure and more on gut instinct, as far from Norrell as a magician can get; order versus chaos. (And it's interesting to think of the Gentleman in those terms, is it not? Chaos seems to often equal faerie, hence Norrell's dislike). One knows instinctively that Norrell would not approve of his raising the dead. Wellington (a superb character) cares not; to him, "Merlin" may as well just be a military engineer, a problem solver at his disposal.

But the episode's most powerful scene belongs to Stephen Black, a character thus far as marginalised on the narrative as he is I the narrative, as the Gentleman shows his horrific birth among the chains and disease and death of a slave ship, reinforced by the simple question "What was the name your mother gave you?" Much as the Gentleman may dangle the prospect of kingship at Stephen, we know (as the Gentleman seemingly does not) that this could surely never happen.

The end of the episode- Childermass takes the bullet as Lady Pole attempts to assassinate Norrell- is shocking. But not as shocking as the scenes in the slave ship. It is clear that the novel, like the series, is not just a superlative Gaimanesque fantasy, but has things to say about the world. And it's bloody brilliantly, too.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell: How Is Lady Pole?

Something different today: a guest post from MrVortexOfDoom, whose YouTube channel you would be wise to have a look at, particularly if you happen to be partial to a bit of Doctor Who.

He and I will be alternating episodes of this splendid serial, and then going head to head for the finale.

That's the compere bit over with; let me hand you over to MrVortexOfDoom...

“I see no one. Or rather, I see roomfuls of people – and not a Christian amongst them”

What really annoys me about peoples’ appreciation of British telly is the fact that we in Britain can't recognise the fantastic and clever product being made in our backyard – while Americans lap quality like this up. Of course, our friends in the US regularly have at least a dozen hours of superb product to digest per week – while all we seem to want is more reality nonsense and documentaries about cats. 

Episode two of “The TV fantasy of 2015” (according to Rolling Stone .com , don’t’cha know) deals this out in spades. Having just finished rereading the fantastic novel by Susanna Clarke, you realise several things. 

1. Somehow, the BBC has managed to get the film rights back from New Line Cinema after the film giant collapsed – that’s why the adaption has taken 10 years to get to us. 

2. How much of an epic struggle it has been to get the monster 782 pages down to a workable mini-series.

And:  3. How much of a challenge it is to pack the iconic scenes into each episode. You read the chapter on the French discovering the rainships & the epic Sandhorses sequence and you think “well, I’m never going to see THAT on screen”. And then, they only go and show it. A brilliant &  breath-taking achievement.

However, what really is striking me about this is the attention to detail, taken faithfully from the novel. Writer Peter Harness could easily have chosen to cut the references to antiquarian times and antiquarian books of magic in favour of seven episodes of CGI and effects. But instead, in a bold move that’s not pleasing everyone, you really feel that the past history of magic is oozing through every minute. I cheered at every namecheck of days long gone – Sutton-Grove, Ormskirk, Mary Absalom, Ralph Stokesey, Lanchesters’ History Of Birds (and a wonderful set-up with Revelations Of Thirty-Six Worlds – which has a great pay-off later (I hope)).

And as well as all that, the episode continues to lay further intriguing questions at your feet. The constant cawing of ravens through the soundtrack. The influence of Fairie and the real world gradually being intertwined (Segundus & Stranges’ shared dream and Stephen's mysterious extra servants bell). The very fact that Segundus can sense magic being performed (store that in your mind palace for later). And a second lovely little set-up with the St Marks Square, Venice paintings. 

Of course, you could just discount all that and go goggle-eyed about how FANTASTIC Lost-Hope looks. But that would be a disservice to the source material and the sheer effort put in to what was considered in many areas an unfilmable novel. 

Enzo Cilenti as Childermass continues to rule every scene he’s in, looking moody in the background (it’s a fun game to spot just how much he’s taking in and observing). However, top billing for episode 2 in my eyes must go to Alice Englert and Bertie Carvel. Englert's Lady Pole starts to unravel badly with all the “fairy stories” taken directly from the text. And Strange himself is starting to believe just how far he can go in the magical world – with just one person standing in his way. 

And here’s a top piece of trivia for regular llama stranglers. Alice Englert's mother? Of all people, Jane Campion !! (Oscar-winning director of The Piano, In the Cut and the Top Of The Lake miniseries). If that juicy morsel doesn’t get you looking forward to episode 3, I don’t know what will.

VoD 2015  

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell: The Friends of English Magic

"All magicians lie, that one more than most..."

I've been looking forward to this dries for ages; I loved the novel. Susanna Clark really has written a wonderful work of fiction, a Regency magical fantasy that wonderfully fuses the world of Jane Austen and Patrick O'Brian with that of Neil Gaiman, building a wonderfully compelling world and peopling it with fascinating individuals. Go and read it now.

I had high hopes, therefore, of this series, and so far (I'm actually three episodes in) my hopes have been entirely full. It's a largely faithful adaptation by Peter Harmess, with a little necessary structural jiggery pokers so that Jonathan Strange can be involved early on, made visually sumptuous by the ever-creative Toby Haynes, one of the best directors currently working in British telly. But s large part of its triumph lies in the wise decision to leave so much of the novel unchanged to the point that I frequently findyself recognising pieces of dialogue.

Bertie Carvel, fresh from playing Nick Clegg in Coalition, is a triumph as the charismatic and chaotic Strange, while Eddie Marsan slightly underwhelms as the sour and miserly Norrell, although I'm aware that others have praised his performance. Still, I must also praise Paul Kaye for a splendidly mad Vinculus (but is he an uncomfortable Jewish Fagin stereotype or am I overthinking things?)and Marc Warren, whose performance as the sinister Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair is magnificent. Also impressive, albeit in the smallish part of Drawlight,is Vincent Franklin, whose performance in Cucumber should rightfully elevate him to leading man status.

It's early days yet, and this episode is, as always for first episodes, set-up. But it does a good job of achieving said set-up, nicely establishing Jonathan Strange as someone expected (not least by his own father) to end up as a rich, useless dilettante but who ends up pursuing magic to impress his belle, Arabella. Norrell's miserable and awkward nature is established, as well as his Faustian pact with the Gentleman. It's clear that we have a Roundhead magician and a budding Cavalier one. I'm also impressed with Childermass, at this stage far more interesting than his employer.

So far so excellent, but let's see how it goes...

New Worlds: Episode 4

"I dream of a vast continent, a republic where millions of men live in liberty."

So, New Worlds is over with a whimper, and I notice that, unlike The Devil's Whore, it caused nary a stir at the time and, mere months later, is pretty much forgotten. So what went wrong? Well, it's dull, for a start, with forgettable characters entirely lacking in charisma. And then there's the didacticism. While there's nothing wrong with looking at the past through the eyes of the present- it only exists in those terms, after all- New Worlds goes too far in putting modern sentiments into Restoration mouths.

The Devil's Whore managed to square this circle, looking at the "Good Old Cause" through the eyes of the contemporary Left examining its own heritage. Yet the characters were all of their time. Here we have Whigs expressing modern values, unhistorical attitudes to the Native American genocide, and crude use of dramatic irony in the many hints that the USA is set to exist in ninety years time. Most notably, the concluding bit of text doesn't even mention the Glorious Revolution of 1688, an elephant in the room that demonstrates a crude attempt to avoid a Whig interpretation of history which values the post-1689 constitutional settlement and trying to put a modern Leftist slant on, well, Whigs.

Charles II continues to be an I characteristically miserable bastard, and then dies right on schedule. Abe Gough is tortured, but escapes execution and buggers off to Boston to embark on a career as the authorial voice. Chris Finch from The Office is still around. There is much examination of the fact that Massachusetts is founded on the genocide of local tribes, and conflict with the King's representative that crudely foreshadows the 1770s ("I am here to remind Massachusetts that it is a colony and not a republic"). Hope is a bit racist. Sidney is horribly executed. Beth's mixed race baby is shunned, and reclaimed by it's fatger's moribund tribe. The Monmouth Rebellion happens. Etc. Etc.

This is actually the best of the four episodes, and moderately involving to watch. But by now it's far too late. 

New Worlds: Episode 3

"Our lives will never change until the kings are torn from their thrones."

This episode, we get Native Americans being all noble savages and that in ways that, while trying hard not to be racist in their depiction, may cross the line into patronising as all depictions of tribal societies inevitably do. We also get interesting political discussion which shows us how the die-hard republicans of the Good Old Cause morph slowly into Whigs, keeping an outward show of monarchy but sidelining it to the extent that one Ancien Regime French ambassador once famously refused to accept that England was a monarchy at all after 1688. This is not a Whig script, of course; it is still interested in the history of the Left and not that of Liberals such as myself who are, while way to the left of Clegg and those dangerous Orange Book entryists, are not from that tradition.

Anyway...

Beth survives transportation and meets a sort of proto-Squanto, proceeding to go predictably native and to act as the hand-wringing, post-colonial mouthpiece of our authorial voice. The King proceeds to be a right bastard, and Angelica's house goes to one of a Judge Jeffries' mates who isn't very nice to the staff, allowing us to see a bit of proto-Chartist class conflict. There's a lot of proto-this and proto-that in this somewhat Marxist script. There's nothing wrong with this, of course, but I wish the script had put equal attention to giving the characters a little depth. None of them come across as anything more than ideological mouthpieces.

Beth and her new Native American mates soon run up against John Hawkins, Henry Cresswell and their equally genocidal Puritan mates in Massachusetts which, once again, it is instructive to see depicted as the frontier. Abe, meanwhile, gets involved with the Rye House Plot. Ted, now back in Massachusetts, finds his beloved Beth now married to the dastardly Henry Cresswell. And the whole Commonwealth of Massachusetts gets a bit of a bollocking on behalf of the King, who is on the Indians' side, sort of. One of the Massachusetts Bastards, incidentally, is Chris Finch from The Office.

Beth's presence in the tribe is discovered, and our RP accented Yankees Hope and Beth resume sleeping together, now a much naughtier thing than it was before. Ned soon becomes outraged at the fact that not only his love rival but also his father are, as William Goffe had put it, "land pirates". Soon enough the tribe is wiped out in a nasty bit of germ warfare. Such is the original sin of America, and it is a very English sin.

The political subtext is entertaining, I suppose, but in the absence of characters in whom one can take an interest it's all there is to grab hold of, and it's not exactly subtle. New Worlds continues to disappoint.

New Worlds: Episode 2

"I cannot marry a man I do not love."

Sigh. Things aren't really picking up. Ned is leaving Boston for England, and Beth is seeing Abe again. Plots are laid to expose Angelica as a traitor and expose her rather dull and understandably circumspect Catholic husband, who cannot deny the "Popish Plot" for fear of accusations, just so the King can seize her land. This is a pity, as Angelica's home is a haven of Whiggery and religious tolerance. Meanwhile, Beth and Abe hope to go to the New World to carry on the Good Old Cause. None of this is presented so as to be at all interesting.

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, Hope Russell is to be married to a man- Henry Cresswell- whom she neither loves nor likes. And yes, it's still weird to hear all of these Massachusetts Puritans speaking in RP accents. She is, of course, presented with all sorts if arguments to make her feel guilty and submit to this patriarchal and misigynistic pressure. The point here is that it's not only the Tories back in England who are somewhat lacking in progressivism.

Angelica's house is invaded by thugs who light bonfires and chant about the "Popish Plot and praise the Duke of Monmouth. Angelica's hubby, sure enough, is trapped into denying Titus Oates' outrageous claims and arrested. He is now at the mercy of the infamous Judge Jeffries, and both Angelica and Beth are in trouble by proxy. It's all very dramatic, yet somehow still fails to engage.

Poor hubby is tortured, while Abe learns of his fatger's death; he is, it seems, Wiiliam Goff's son. He tries to kill Charles II, whom Jeremy Northam is portraying as a not-at-all merry monarch. He is harboured by Beth and Angelica, and both are subsequently arrested and, on Angelica's case, finally have her luck run out as she is sentenced to be burned at the stake while Beth is transported to America.

Angelica finally dies, watched by her daughter, and gives a magnificent speech; being executed is, after all, a per formative act and, in this case, a political one as she calls Charles a tyrant. Abe, mercifully, shoots her dead before she can suffer, and then seemingly plunges to his own death.

All this is juxtaposed with Charles, looking thoroughly miserable, putting on his crown and dissolving Parliament. He seems triumphant.

New Worlds: Episode 1

"Young Americans like you must seize true liberty."

The Devil's Whore was superlative television. This... isn't, and it's obvious from the start. The cast doesn't sparkle anywhere near as much, there's a lack of unity between the scenes in England and Massachusetts, and the continuing political themes are handled a little more clunky; yes, pre-Glorious Revolution England was no beacon of liberty, but Charles II was not his father, and certainly not the miserable bastard we see here. There a reason why he's known as the Merry Monarch.

We begin in Massachusetts in 1680, a place of Puritan dogma, ethnic cleansing and republican sympathies which extend to harbouring Colonel William Goff, one of the few surviving regicides. Most jarring of all, though, to modern eyes, is the sight of Native American tribes in that long-settled part of New England; the Eastern Seaboard is the frontier. Here we meet Hope and Ned, two strangely RP-accented Americans about whom we are supposed to care, but don't. Indeed, even watching, as I did, with subtitles, it was well into the second episode before I got a clear idea of who the characters were. Characterisation is not this series' strong point.

Our first sight of England is bodies hanging from the Tower of London; lovely. Here we meet an older and much less charismatic Angelica Fanshawe, her grown-up daughter Beth, and her Roman Catholic husband who has been having rather a rough time of it since the so-called Popish Plot two years ago. Beth becomes curious about her father, Edward Sexby, now a conveniently dead legend for republicans and Whigs. Angelica is under pressure to sell her land to the King. This is all set-up and plot but mainly exposition,  with very little spectacle, character or thematic cleverness. The historical characters- James, Duke of York, the Earl of Shaftesbury and the "Protestant Duke"- are made to seem very dull.

William Goff, meanwhile, is on the run from the King's men. He symbolises the transfer of republican ideas from England to America, something dripping with dramatic irony as we know, as he does not, that the English Civil War will have an  American sequel a century hence in which a new republic will be born. Goff is not an unproblematic proto-American, though; shortly before his death he bemoans the ethnic cleansing of the Native Americans, the original sin of the United States. Anyway, he is killed, but not before rather predictably inspiring Ned.

Back in  England, Beth is kidnapped on her birthday by Abe, about whom we are also supposed to care. He awakens both her sexuality and her political conscience somewhat, but nothing really happens. The episode ends with nothing but set-up having happened and no real sense of where the series is going.