Did anyone catch the Masterpiece Mystery presentation of The Shadow in the North last week on PBS? If so, you might have recognized a few Austen actors from The Complete Jane Austen which aired on Masterpiece Classic from January – April this year. Reprising their roles in the previous Philip Pullman adaptation of The Ruby in the Smoke (2006) were Billie Piper (Fanny Price in Mansfield Park) as Sally Lockhart, JJ Field (Henry Tilney in Northanger Abbey) as Frederick Garland, and Hayley Atwell (Mary Crawford in Mansfield Park) as Rose Garland. This new adaptation of the Philip Pullman novel from the Sally Lockhart series was directed John Alexander (Sense and Sensibility 2008).If you missed it, here is a plot summary from the PBS (WGBH) web site.
The year is 1878, and Sally Lockhart (Billie Piper, Mansfield Park) has started her own financial consulting business. When her client, Miss Walsh, loses a fortune from the unexpected collapse of the Anglo-Baltic shipping line, Sally is determined to find out why so many of their ships have mysteriously vanished without trace. Hoping to recover her client’s money, she turns for help to her friends, Frederick (JJ Feild, Northanger Abbey) and Jim, who have started up their own detective agency.
While pursuing their enquiries into the disappearance of the steamship Ingrid Linde, the three sleuths find themselves investigating stage magician Alistair MacKinnon who is being threatened by mysterious thugs, and a psychic medium who seems to be tapping into shady business secrets – all of which draws them unwittingly into a dark and sinister plot fuelled by the dealings of the cruel and heartless industrialist Axel Bellmann, whose business is built on a horrifying secret.
The DVD's of both The Ruby in the Smoke and The Shadow in the North are available for purchase, and well worth it just to for the pleasure of actor JJ Feild, who continues to choose roles that show off this debonair charm and good looks! This young actor might just be our next Cary Grant.Posted by Laurel Ann, Austenprose
3 comments:
Love, love, love JJ Field! Thanks for the tip.
The question should be if the DVD's have the complete versions, since they seem to be manufactured again by WGBH (that is PBS). The broadcasts of both films were heavily cut as they were the complete JA ones, and we know that the NA2 and MP3 DVD's also by WGBH were incomplete versions (as I believe is also the Jane Eyre 2007 miniserie).
Cinthia
Oooh thanks for the review, I didn't know about these!
Post a Comment