Review: Arthur and George, ep 1

The first episode of ITV’s new 3-part drama, Arthur and George, aired this evening. It stars Martin Clunes as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who forms a friendship with George Edelji (played by Arsher Ali). George has recently been released from prison having been convicted of mutilating horses (and threatening to do the same to children), and the story follows his journey to clear his name.

Today’s episode featured a round-up of the original story of George’s case, and Arthur beginning his investigations into the case. Although it was a little slow to start, it had plenty of mystery. It’s nice to see Martin Clunes not playing Doc Martin for a change; some people on Twitter complained about his Scottish accent but as a born and bred southerner it sounded Scottish enough to me…

Frustratingly, the sound levels were quite poor – and the music over the top of speech was quite loud! Always makes a drama less enjoyable when you have to strain to hear what’s going on…

I’ll include the trailer below – I found it a little bit creepier than the trailer lets on, but if you like that sort of weird Edwardian/Victorian esque mystery (lots of mist, shadowy figures, symbolic dead animals, creepy dolls) then you’ll probably enjoy this. I also enjoyed the romantic subplot between Arthur and his “friend” Miss Leckie, which provides some needed light relief. I think I’ll probably tune in for next week’s episode, but mainly because I can’t cope with an unsolved mystery. All in all, I felt it was pretty average – it wasn’t the worst drama I’ve seen but it certainly isn’t the best. What did you think?

Sunday Night TV Battle: The Casual Vacancy vs. Indian Summers

Sunday night at 9PM is the perfect time for a drama – it gives you something to take your mind off the week ahead and the horrors of Monday. Two weeks ago, two new dramas started at this time. The first is The Casual Vacancy, showing on BBC1, which is based on JK Rowling’s novel of the same name. The second is Indian Summers, set in India in 1932 during the final years of British rule. It’s probably unfair to compare the two – The Casual Vacancy is a manageable 3 part adaptation whilst Indian Summers is a 10 episode beast of a series…this also means there’s only one episode of The Casual Vacancy to go. But as it stands so far, which one comes out on top?

SETTING

The Casual Vacancy: Quaint, quintessential English village – with a less desirable neighbouring council estate.

Indian Summers: Lush Indian (although technically Malaysian – it was filmed in Penang) vegetation, vibrant colours, bustling streets and beautiful villas. You can almost feel the heat, which is lovely when you’re sat in a rainy, freezing cold England.

Winner: Indian Summers. The setting is truly beautiful and really transports you somewhere far away from your sofa.

PLOT

The Casual Vacancy: Virtually everyone in the village is absolutely vile, and – spoiler alert – the one really nice guy dies. Then it’s a fight to see who will take his Parish Council place…although someone has other ideas. It moves at a nice pace and it’s easy to keep up with.

Indian Summers: No exaggeration, I have no idea what is going on. Not a clue. Given that my memory is awful and there are a lot of characters, I accept this could be all my fault but I had to resort to reading the Guardian’s episode recap just to find out what had happened. Obviously there are a lot of unanswered questions and secrets at the moment – which is a good thing because there’s 8 episodes left to fill…

Winner: The Casual Vacancy – purely because out of the two, I’m more excited about watching it’s conclusion. I admit, Indian Summers might get better as it goes but if I’m perfectly honest it’s a Sunday night and so far it’s requiring far too much concentration.

CHARACTERS 

The Casual Vacancy: Admittedly, most of the characters are horrible, but throughout the drama you get the opportunity to understand a little bit more about why they are the way they are. You also feel real sympathy for anyone under the age of 18 stuck in this god-awful village. I have a particular fondness for Kyrstal Weedon – daughter of a local heroin addict who is just trying to make her way through life.

Indian Summers: There are a lot of characters…I just haven’t felt any emotional connection with most of them yet. I do have a favourite but I literally cannot remember her name which sort of speaks for itself.

Winner: The Casual Vacancy.

CASTING

The Casual Vacancy: Dumbledore and Miss Marple, plus Rory Kinnear, Keeley Hawes and Emilia Fox.

Indian Summers: The one and only Julie Walters, plus the bully from The Inbetweeners and some amazing newbies.

Winner: The Casual Vacancy. Honestly thought Mrs Walters was unbeatable but we haven’t seen enough of her in the first two episodes and Michael Gambon and Julia McKenzie are killing it as the interfering, prejudiced old couple.

COSTUME, HAIR & MAKEUP

The Casual Vacancy: An impressively realistic heroin addict, an interesting take on school uniform and Keeley Hawes looking INCREDIBLE with flaming red hair.

Indian Summers: Seriously beautiful outfits – and some incredibly daring necklines for the 30’s.

Winner: Indian Summers

OVERALL WINNER

The Casual Vacancy. Out of the two, it’s the one I would recommend. However, Indian Summers seems like it has so much more to offer us, so may review it again in a couple of weeks to see if my feelings towards it change! You can catch up on both on iPlayer/4OD.

‘Girls’

The first season of Girls actually came out last year in both the UK and the US – the second season is due to start again in the US on 13th January. I had never watched it but had heard a huge amount about the show as it completely divided critics – some thought it was gritty and realistic and others thought it was over-hyped and racist (due to an almost completely white cast).

The show follows four girls in their 20s, living in New York: Hannah, Marnie, Jessa and Shoshanna. They are facing the problems that every girl has to face like being broke and boys being difficult!

I decided I would give it a go, and personally – I loved it. I watched the entire first season in two days (it was the Christmas holiday and I was procrastinating from getting any actual work done).

The show is realistic in the sense that it isn’t glamorous at all. The girls fight with each other, they don’t have perfect hair/bodies/wardrobes, they have horrible sex with rubbish boyfriends…all of this makes it really refreshing to watch. It made me feel a lot better about my own life for one, and has a number of relatable scenes in it that in many ways are reassuring, such as Hannah going to get checked for STDs, or Marnie’s awkward break-up with the boyfriend that she has begun to hate. I would really recommend this show to any girls (sounds like a terrible pun, its not, I just wouldn’t recommend it to most of my male friends because I’m not sure they’d appreciate a lot of it) who liked Sex and The City but who don’t want to feel depressed about their lack of designer wardrobe/absence of a model perfect body – this is the show for you!

The other refreshing thing about the show is that the character’s aren’t always likeable – I sometimes found myself frustrated by the life choices they made, and Hannah’s selfishness also really irritated me. The only character that at no point did I find annoying was Shoshanna, who is just adorable. The fact that I wasn’t completely bowled over by the characters actually made the show more interesting to watch, and because they were making choices that I wouldn’t have made, I couldn’t wait to see the next episode to see how things turned out. Here is the trailer for season one:

Give it a look, and then go and watch the first series!