Deciding how to split this review was a problem. It doesn't have an even number of episodes, unlike Little Dorrit or Our Mutual Friend. Dedicating an entire post to each episode would be awesome, but might try my readers' patience. So in the end I decided to split the episodes in the same way as the DVD does: three episodes in the first review, two in the next.
There are some series that have so many little details in them that it's impossible to spot them all in one viewing. Cranford is one of them. I've watched it about twenty times and I still notice things I never saw before!
It's also one of those series that put the viewer on an emotional roller-coaster. One minute it's hilarious, the next it's heartbreaking.
First, some information on the series. Cranford is based on the novel of the same name by Elizabeth Gaskell, but it also draws inspiration from some of her novellas. There are dozens of characters, but Dr. Harrison and Miss Matty are probably the main characters simply because so much happens to them.
It would be easier to make a list of the actors who aren't recognisable. Here are just a few of the familiar faces:
Francesca Annis (Mrs. Gibson in Wives and Daughters) as Lady Ludlow
Judi Dench (Lady Catherine in Pride and Prejudice 2005) as Miss Matty
Simon Woods (Mr. Bingley in Pride and Prejudice 2005) as Dr. Harrison
Claudie Blakley (Charlotte in Pride and Prejudice 2005) as Martha
Julia Sawalha (Lydia in Pride and Prejudice 1995) as Jessie Brown
Jim Carter (John Manly in Black Beauty) as Captain Brown
Deborah Findlay (Miss Phoebe in Wives and Daughters) as Augusta Tomkinson
Barbara Flynn (Miss Browning in Wives and Daughters) as Mrs. Jamieson
Michael Gambon (Squire Hamley in Wives and Daughters) as Thomas Holbrook
Lesley Manville (Mrs. Hale in North and South) as Mrs. Rose
Imelda Staunton (Mrs. Palmer in Sense and Sensibility 1995, and Mrs. Micawber in David Copperfield 1999) as Miss Pole
Greg Wise (Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility 1995) as Sir Charles
Whew! And that's not even half the cast!
Now, on to the story.
Two newcomers separately arrive in the village of Cranford: Mary Smith, who's come to visit her friends Miss Deborah and Miss Matty Jenkyns, and Dr. Harrison, who's come to help Dr. Morgan with his patients.
Miss Deborah
Mary Smith
Miss Matty
Dr. Harrison
Dr. Harrison, being a young bachelor, causes a great deal of talk in the village. Most of the talk is thanks to Miss Pole, one of the greatest gossips in a village full of gossips.
"You don't know the meaning of novelty until you hear me speak!"
Dr. Morgan takes Dr. Harrison to visit some of the patients. Along the way Dr. Harrison meets Sophy, Reverend Hutton's daughter.
Sophy and her brother Walter. (Am I the only one who thought Sophy was played by Carey Mulligan? She's actually played by Kimberley Nixon, but she looks amazingly like Ada in Bleak House.)
Soon disaster strikes. Jem Hearne, a carpenter, breaks his arm in an accident. (This is a rather gory scene that some people might want to skip.) Dr. Morgan thinks the best thing to do is to amputate. Dr. Harrison disagrees. He successfully sets Jem Hearne's arm (another scene that's hard to watch) despite Dr. Morgan's objections and with Mary's help (and candles donated by the ladies of Cranford). Yay!
Dr. Harrison, Mary, and Jem
Meanwhile, Lady Ludlow is preparing to hold her annual garden party. She's disappointed to hear that her son, Lord Septimus, won't be there, but is sure that he's too sick to return from Italy. Too sick, my foot. He's nothing but a selfish malingerer who nearly bankrupts his mother with his constant demands for money. Mr. Carter, Lady Ludlow's land agent, clearly knows this. Lady Ludlow probably knows it herself, but she doesn't want to believe it.
Mr. Carter and Lady Ludlow
Cranford in general, and the Jenkyns household in particular, gets something new to gossip about when newcomers move into an empty house near the Jenkyns. The newcomers are Captain Brown and his two daughters, one of whom is an invalid and appears exactly once. Sir Charles Maulver has found this house for the Browns to repay Captain Brown for saving his life.
Miss Matty, Mary, Miss Pole and Miss Deborah watch the Browns arrive
Captain Brown
Sir Charles
Jessie Brown (Words can't describe how shocked I was to realise this is Lydia of all people!)
Miss Pole and Mrs. Forrester, another Cranford resident, attempt to do something to a piece of lace. (Are they trying to dye it? Or bleach it? I can never tell 🤷 *consults the subtitles* Apparently they want to bleach it.) Unfortunately, they're foiled by Mrs. Forrester's cat. What follows is simultaneously hilarious and gross. It's made all the funnier by the baffled reactions of Drs. Harrison and Morgan, who witness one of the weirdest chase scenes in period drama.
Dr. Morgan: "This is Cranford. A place of peace." Miss Pole: "Out of the way! We are in the throes of an exceptional emergency!" Me: 😆
Captain Brown goes away to help Sir Charles with business, and asks Miss Deborah to watch his daughters. While he's away his invalid daughter dies. This puts Miss Deborah in an awkward situation. Jessie wants to walk behind her sister's coffin. But ladies never attend funerals in Cranford. After praying about it, Miss Deborah resolves this problem by attending the funeral with Jessie.
In Episode 2, Captain Brown and Jessie have a visitor, Major Gordon, and ask the Jenkyns and Mary to meet him. It's immediately obvious that Major Gordon and Jessie are in love -- obvious to the viewer, and to Miss Deborah. The Major and Jessie give an adorable rendition of Loch Lomond, accompanied by Miss Deborah's spoon.
Jessie and Major Gordon
Everyone is getting ready for Lady Ludlow's garden party. The ladies of the village are ordering new hats (unfortunately for poor Miss Galindo, the milliner) and dresses.
Miss Pole, Miss Galindo and Mrs. Forrester
What on earth is that thing on Miss Pole's head? A clothes-horse? Rabbit ears? Part of a hat?
Caroline Tomkinson, one of the villagers, has fallen in love with Dr. Harrison. So she pretends to be ill to see him more often. Poor Dr. Harrison hasn't a clue.
Caroline Tomkinson
Jessie visits the Jenkyns to tell them that Major Gordon has sent her anemones, which mean "love ever steadfast" in the language of flowers. She reveals that Major Gordon proposed to her, but she turned him down because of her sister's illness. And now he's sent her anemones. Aww 😍
Harry Gregson, the eldest son of a poor family, gets his little brother to milk Bessie, Mrs. Forrester's cow, while Harry goes poaching. The brother forgets to close the gate, and the next day Bessie has disappeared. Captain Brown gathers a search party, and they find poor Bessie has fallen into a lime pit. Major Gordon and Jessie go to get help, and on the way Major Gordon proposes to Jessie again.
(This scene is heartbreaking and adorable, but its placement is baffling. Poor Bessie is still in the pit, and Major Gordon -- who's been given an important task -- thinks now is a good time to propose? The editors slipped up there.)
Jessie is about to accept until she hears that Major Gordon will have to go to India soon. She doesn't want to leave her father alone, so she refuses the major's proposal. Ouch 😢
Bessie is rescued from the lime pit, but it's singed her hair off. (What's the name for a cow's coat? Is it fur or hair?) So Mrs. Forrester dresses her in pyjamas.
I think I can safely say this is a sight never seen before in period drama -- or anywhere else.
Harry goes poaching on Lady Ludlow's land. While there he falls asleep in a greenhouse. Mr. Carter finds him the next morning. After warning Harry of the sentence for trespassing, Mr. Carter offers him sixpence if he runs errands for him for a day.
Harry and Mr. Carter
The day of the garden party arrives. Sophy's worried because Walter's hoarse, but she agrees to let him come when she sees Dr. Harrison.
Two important things happen during the garden party. (Three, if you count Mrs. Forrester saying the line that gives the blog its title 😃) Miss Matty meets Thomas Holbrook, the man she almost married thirty years ago, and Miss Pole and Mrs. Forrester learn that the railway is to come to Cranford. Naturally, Miss Pole can't keep the news to herself. Five minutes later all her friends have heard about it.
They immediately go to consult Captain Brown... and are shocked to learn that he is going to work for the railway company. Jessie is especially upset. She refused Major Gordon because she didn't want to leave her father alone, and now she learns that her father won't be at home much anyway.
Miss Deborah complains of a headache when she returns home. Minutes later she collapses. Mary sends Martha for Dr. Morgan. At the same time Reverend Hutton sends for Dr. Harrison because Walter has croup.
I always have to keep tissues nearby for this part because... both Miss Deborah and Walter die. Noooooo😭😭
😭
After the heartbreak of episode 2, surely episode 3 will be less of a tearjerker? ...No. It definitely won't.
Johnson's store has been robbed, and Mr. Johnson was hit over the head by the robber. No one is sure who the robber was, but suspicion falls on Harry's father Job Gregson. Harry can prove his father was elsewhere at the time of the robbery, but doing so would also get him in trouble: Harry and his father were poaching on Lady Ludlow's land and killed some of her pheasants.
Eventually Harry tells Mr. Carter, who asks Lady Ludlow to have Sir Charles convict Job Gregson of poaching instead of robbery.
Dr. Marshland, a friend of Dr. Harrison's, comes to stay with his friend for Christmas. This is the beginning of Dr. Harrison's troubles.
At the Tomkinsons' Christmas party, Miss Matty tells Captain Brown about Major Gordon proposing to Jessie, and Dr. Marshland gives a pretty good rendition of The Parting Glass (a clip of this scene is available on Youtube, but only in certain countries, and mine isn't one of them 😒).
Valentine's Day arrives, and Dr. Marshland is about to leave. Before he leaves he causes a great deal of trouble for Dr. Harrison when he sends a Valentine to Caroline Tomkinson, giving the impression Dr. Harrison sent it.
Miss Matty, Mary and Miss Pole go to visit Thomas Holbrook. Apart from some difficulty with the forks at dinnertime, the visit goes very well.
(Side note: Miss Pole says she hasn't invited to Mr. Holbrook's house since Mr. Canning was Prime Minister. George Canning was Prime Minister in 1827, and Cranford takes place in 1842-43.)
Does Mr. Holbrook not have any forks with more than two prongs?
Problem solved! (To Miss Pole's horror 😂)
It's clear that Mr. Holbrook and Miss Matty still love each other, and it becomes even more obvious through the episode. Aww.
😍
Mr. Holbrook decides to go to France for a while, to give Miss Matty time to think about his proposal.
Mary sees Miss Matty's family Bible, and is surprised to learn that Miss Matty has a brother, Peter. Miss Matty tells her about how a prank gone wrong led to Peter running away to India, never to be heard from again (until later...).
Mr. Holbrook returns from France. Unfortunately, he catches pneumonia on the way, and by the time he reaches Cranford it's too late. Miss Matty goes and sits by his body, and reads a poem he once read her. Ouch. 😭
(Incidentally, the poem she reads is Locksley Hall by Alfred Lord Tennyson. It can be read in its entirety here. The actual poem is much more cynical and much less romantic than the excerpts used in the series suggest, though.)
After this, Miss Matty goes to Miss Galindo and asks for a widow's cap. Cue yet more tears 😭
So, what do I think of the series so far? I can sum it up in one word: perfection. Every single character is brilliantly acted, the sudden switches from comedy to tragedy never feel forced, and every character is so real.
It's not a faithful adaptation of the book. But for once I can forgive that, partly because the series is just that good and partly because the book doesn't have a plot -- it's just about events that happen in the village. The series has a much more interesting plot.
Rating: 10/10.
Review of the next two episodes here.
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