TV REVIEW: The Village - Episode Two

In my review of last week’s The Village, I remarked, at length, upon the darkness of the series, and that it certainly didn’t seem set to be a ‘cosy fireside drama’. And judging by this week’s episode, it isn’t about to get any brighter.

Since Joe’s departure for the front line, things have only really gone from bad to worse for the Middleton family. Grace (Maxine Peake) has another baby on the way- meaning another mouth they cannot afford to feed. Meanwhile John (John Simm) relies on alcohol more than ever, and Bert is in perpetual trouble at school, receiving regular corporal punishment from a teacher with not such much a chip on his shoulder as a big gaping hole. For a change, things aren’t actually much better up at the big house, either. Already struggling to keep their reputation in tact during wartime, Lady Clem is devastated to discover daughter Caro is pregnant by a mystery man, quickly crying foul play and laying the blame at the Middleton door. This is to have potentially devastating consequences for him and his family, due to an apparent previous conviction. Caro isn’t having a great time with all of this either, still grieving and confused over the torture and murder of her dog, Baby the dachshund.

So reasonably bleak, then. It wasn’t all bad news though. At the end Grace gave birth and John bought a cow...Also on the plus side, there were some moving performances throughout, particularly from John Simm, who captures well the essence of a man constantly finding himself in terrible circumstances without any understanding of what he could possibly have done to deserve them. Maxine Peake is brilliant as the much put upon Grace, lurching between sadness and a desperate desire to keep her family in one piece. Her reaction to John’s *spoiler alert* suicide attempt was genuinely affecting. Young Bert Middleton (Bill Jones) is coming along a treat as well, particularly in his relationships with both the other boys at school and with his tyrannical teacher.  Juliet Stevenson is great as the haughty Clem Allingham, but I think that one’s sort of a given.

In fact all of the characters seem to be developing well as we find out more about them, and as we settle in to this depiction of village life. We’re learning more and more about how things worked in that time week by week, and as a result it is actually becoming progressively more uncomfortable to watch the villagers have to turn and face the wall when the Lord and Lady arrive/do anything/are spotted half a mile away sneezing delicately into a handkerchief, because know they're no better than the rest of them. The only character writer Peter Moffat (I don’t know if there’s any relation) doesn’t seem to know what to do with, is Martha Lane (Charlie Murphy). He clearly wanted her to fill the shoes of educated feisty suffragette, and there is a good deal of potential for her to be exactly that, but it isn’t going to work out so well if she carries on storming into places, making a couple of half-arsed speeches, then storming out again in a sulk two minutes later when it becomes clear that no one actually gives a monkey’s.

Nevertheless, this is shaping up to be a strong series, dealing with the passing of time in a compact and not all that confusing way. Which can be rare. I just can’t help but wish something nice would happen to someone. Just once. Like maybe they get a free sponge cake or something, or go for a nice walk. Anything.

I’ll let you know- but I don’t think I’ll be holding my breath.

The Village is next on tonight, BBC One, 9pm.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0162blq

- Jen

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TV REVIEW: The Village - Episode One

With a name conjuring images of a sleepy pastoral idyll, of bales of hay, larking about and warm lager in the sun, coupled with its Easter Sunday evening slot, it would be easy, obvious, even, to assume that The Village, starring John Simm, is family friendly, uplifting viewing.

But cosy fireside drama it is not, as those of you who also watched it will be painfully aware.

The drama centres around Bert Middleton, a man who, in his later years, becomes the second oldest man in Britain. Through him, we’re transported back to his memories of a post First World War Peak District village. Bert is the younger son of Grace and John Middleton (Maxine Peake, John Simm), and the kid brother of Joe (Nico Mirallegro). Simm’s John the farmer spends his days running a rapidly failing farm, whilst trying to maintain a sort of desperate control over his family life through a combination of heavy handedness, alcoholism and downright cruelty. This is all set against the bitterly contrasting backdrop of ‘the big house’, resided in by the aristocratic Allingham family, a home in which domestic servants are expected to face the wall when their master enters a room.

In Episode 1, we are introduced to our companions on this journey through village life, and given a glimpse into how tough life was for people with very little freedom, those without a hope in hell of anything remotely resembling a prospect, let alone an ambition. With the arrival of the very first bus, however, things take a turn for the better, as along comes the beautiful, modern thinking token suffragette Martha Lane (Charlie Murphy), with whom both of the Middleton boys fall head over heels in love. Later, the onset of war causes many male village residents, including Joe, to consider what they want from their own freedom, and with that whether or not to sign up and become a soldier.

So far, so period drama. A sentence I seem to be writing a lot lately. Mostly, I assume, because there are so many blooming period dramas on these days. You can’t move for the things. That or I just insist upon watching all of them. The trend of late, however, seems to be along the lines of period dramas with a difference, period dramas with their own little, personal twist. A turn of phrase I already regret given the nature of much of The Village, episode one. I wasn’t entirely sure at certain points that I hadn’t got confused and accidentally flicked on an adaptation of Spring Awakening. Watching a twelve year old boy experiencing, er, sexual experimentation, should we say, for the first time after spying on the local women at the bathing house wasn’t quite how I had expected to spend my evening. And that’s without even considering the gruff lovemaking of Grace and John we overhear, or Joe’s little dalliance with Caro Allingham (Emily Beecham) in the local woods. A location otherwise known as the most over-used sexually symbolic location since Beowulf.  Or thereabouts. It was like watching the lovechild of Downtown Abbey and Game of Thrones, only with Northern accents and a spot of moorland.

Tiny complaint raised, and in all honesty only raised as I can only imagine how many viewers watching en famille were caught out by it*, the show  itself seems set to be really rather good. Simm is excellent as the troubled farmer and family patriarch. Peake is perfect as the downtrodden Grace, and Juliet Stevenson is fabulously frosty as Lady of the manor Lady Clem Altringham. Poignant, powerful, well scripted and well-acted, The Village could well succeed where Ripper Street recently failed, in that, hurtling via memory through the century as it is, teaching us lessons about our country’s history along the way, it is that rare thing – a period drama with a point.


The Village is next on Sunday http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0162blq/episodes/guide 9pm, BBC One.



   Jen


*admittedly there was a little ‘scenes of a sexual nature’ warning at the start of the show, but with the Beeb you normally expect that to mean that somebody says ‘arse’ a couple of times under their breath, or that you might accidentally catch the occasional glimpse of a gentlewoman’s petticoats through a combination of several dusty mirrors and a trick of the light.


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