Cranford. The Columbus Dispatch : Television Review. 5 May 2008
Posted by vincentfeli in Body.Tags: adaptation, cranford, dench, matty
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LONDON — Cranford doesn’t follow the trend to sex-up TV adaptations of British classics — and the screenwriter is proud of it. “There is no sex,” Heidi Thomas says, laughing. She adapted Elizabeth Gaskell’s witty and astute observations of mid-19th-century village life in northern England, where a group of spinsters dominates social mores. “You are dealing with a lot of very excitable virgins, and that to me is so much more delicious than sexing it up.” The cast concurs.
“If it’s not there, you don’t think about it,” says Imelda Staunton, who plays Miss Pole, the most nosy and gossipy of the group. “I think it can be sexy if it’s suggestion — touching hands can be erotic,” observes Judi Dench, a teasing sparkle in her eyes. She plays Miss Matty Jenkyns, who’s at the heart of the story, her chance at marriage denied by prudence, duty and fate.
