Das karmesinrote Blütenblatt

I rarely write reviews. However...within two episodes, the BBC licence this year has been worth paying. And with gratitude. Quite fond of a Victorian drama, everything about this series is magnificent. The detail–underarm hair on women, the ugly charm of London in the nineteenth century, the wide open shots of the streets simply for a scene where one woman walks across the road–offering a tantalising view that the viewer could actually be there, the lighting, the makeup, the production, the acting, the direction... I did not recognise Gillian Anderson at all and had to refer to my paper. How far she has come. Chris O'Dowd I thought was an odd choice to begin with–but how he fitted in. Robert Sterne has to be congratulated. It is without a shadow of a doubt that the next two episodes will not disappoint. I must rush out and buy the book. First class.

I have to admit, one of the only reasons I watched this is because I'm a huge fan of Romola Garai, but after the first episode I was completely hooked. It's well worth watching even if you don't care at all for any of the actors because everything about it is superb.

The Crimson Petal and the White is based on a neo-Victorian novel by the stupendous writer Michel Faber. The wonderful thing about neo-Victorian works is that they can revisit the Victorian age without being constrained by all the things that the Victorians liked to keep under wraps, like frank sexual talk. This comes in handy in The Crimson Petal and the White which is focused a great deal on sex and sexuality.

The main character is Sugar (Romola Garai, fantastic as always), a prostitute who has been working in the trade since she hit puberty (or maybe even before). Sugar has a deep distaste for men (she's working on a fantasy novel in which she tortures, maims, and kills her clients), but is well renowned because of her willingness to do anything (sexually speaking). She attracts the attention of William Rackham (Chris O'Dowd), a bumbling entrepreneur trapped in an unhappy marriage who is actually attracted to Sugar's mind as well as her body as she is self-educated and extremely literate and they both are well read. The more time Sugar and Rackham spend together the more they become obsessed with one another which leads to Sugar becoming more involved in Rackham's business and Rackham becoming concerned with keeping Sugar to himself.

There is a lot more to the plot than that, but it's a wonderful tale. The aspects of Sugar and Rackham's personalities are set down early, and as the story unfolds we see these aspects play out. Sugar, who is tough minded and hard, is also incredibly smart, has the capacity to grow and change and also to love. Rackham is weak and selfish and these aspects are exposed as he faces difficult decision after difficult decision.

The cast is excellent (special shoutout here to Chris O'Down whom I had previously only seen acting in comedies. He handles the darker material with ease putting to rest that lie about comedians not being able to handle anything but comedy). Beautifully shot and excellent costumes as you would expect from a BBC drama.

I love Michel Faber's writing and it's a toss up between this and Under The Skin for his greatest work. The two could be no more different; Under the Skin is a taught contemporary sci fi horror set in Scotland and this; an 800 page monstrous take on Dickensian Victorian London.

Both are really great books and consequently both run the risk of taking a good pasting when put on screen.

There has been many year's of talk that TCPATW would be Hollywood-made and for a while rumour had it that Kirsten Dunst was to be the heroine, Sugar. However it fell eventually to the BBC to make this near epic adaptation. I say near epic because big and bold as it was I think it had even greater potential.

The previews did not make great reading; the panel on Newsnight Review, with the honourable exception of Maureen Lipman, annihilated it so I approached fearing the worst.

I needn't have worried.

The, at times, over tricksy focus pulling in the camera work was a bit heavy handed but this was overcome on balance because otherwise it was excellent (moody, creepy, almost surreal in places and beautifully emphasised by a particularly odd (in a good way) score written by newcomer CristobalTapai de Veer).

The set and costumes are astounding and the acting of the entire cast, but Particularly Chris O'Dowd (the IT team) and Romola Garai were of BAFTA winning standards, and had to be to pull it off.

In particular O'Dowd's tortured portrayal of sappy rich boy William Rackham is magnificent. It's as if he can't decide how to play the role, but that's just how Faber wrote it. In the end he comes across as merely a weak sap who is only in it for himself. Perhaps he cannot help it as we frequently see when he is led astray by his particularly vulgar "friends".

Romola Garai, by contrast, is nailed to the tracks in the conviction of her character, as the upwardly mobile Sugar; pulling herself out of the stench thanks to the interest of Rackham who gradually exalts her social profile in a London where status was everything (and boy did she have status in the underworld, starting off as the top prostitute in London). Her gritty but sometimes tender performance is the beating heart of the book and this ultimately excellent adaptation.

It's still on iplayer but I'd wait for the DVD and splash out.

For me it would play out better as an epic four hour movie rather than a four part TV series.

Wonderful. Bring on the BAFTAs. (And the Emmys).

Addictive, and not in a bad way. Sooo rich in character and setting. You feel dirty when you see the homeless old men, hopeless, skinny children, and the mentally gone, all whose skin is the same color as the coal smoke filth of London. You smell the urine in the streets as you follow Sugar from her whorehouse to the market. The whores you meet are vacant, empty souls eaten by diseases and beaten to pulp by cowardly customers.

There isn't anyone good in this story, but they're all marvelous.

Sugar plots imaginary revenge against her johns, and it's such a pleasure to see that she has some power, if only in her mind, over her miserable world.

I love a good period drama, and The Crimson Petal and the White is exactly that. The book is a masterpiece, full of rich, memorable characters and a very interesting story line that draws you in from the word go, and this series lives up to it very, very well. Not only as an adaptation, but on its own terms, and it is addictive and easy to get into. I am not going to say which is better, the book or the series, I love them both equally.

Where The Crimson Petal and the White scores especially is in its setting and how it looks. The whole series is beautifully photographed, and the scenery and costumes are astounding. Not only that, the lighting and colours look so rich and vibrant in colour. The Crimson Petal and the White also succeeds in conveying a major asset that most period dramas have but some just lack, atmosphere. The atmosphere is so strong and authentic often that you don't feel you're watching a series, you feel as though you are being transported in time and reliving that moment for yourself.

I am also fond of good music in pretty much anything, being an aspiring singer and growing up into a musical family. The music for The Crimson Petal and the White is exquisite. Sometimes it is beautiful. Sometimes it is poignant. And sometimes it is haunting and intense when it needs to be. All these fit wonderfully with every scene, and are thankfully done in a subtle way in alternative to being done in an over-bearing and overly bombastic manner.

There is also a lot of depth in this series. Not that the book didn't, quite the contrary, but here the characters especially have the richness and perhaps even complexity of those in a Dickens dramatisation, in particular Amanda Hale's character. In fact for me, characterisation wise, The Crimson Petal and the White is the most in-depth series I have seen in the past year or so.

The Crimson Petal and the White benefits from really strong writing. It is very intelligent and literate with a dark quality to it too and never jars from the scene it appears in or in the characters it helps shape. The story helped by the atmosphere is hugely compelling, with subplots and the like developed very nicely without feeling too underdeveloped or padded out. The length and pacing should be credited, The Crimson Petal and the White considering how mammoth the book is, doesn't feel to me like it was too short, too rushed, too long or too meandering, instead it is perfect.

The direction also helps, it is very stylish and elegant, very like the camera work and settings for the series. The acting is superb, my favourite being Amanda Hale who gives real credibility to her increasingly tormented character instead of making her fall in caricature. Gillian Anderson is almost unrecognisable and is very good, she always is very good, but the thing about Anderson is that the more I see of her the more she impresses me. And this is pretty much the same with Romola Garai, I liked her very much in Atonement and Emma but I loved her here as she plays for my money her most interesting character to date. The biggest surprise though, and in a good way, is Chris O'Dowd, when I think of O'Dowd his style of acting(cheeky and spontaneous boyish charm) is very different to what is seen here, and overall he does do a really good job.

Overall, an amazing series. 10/10 Bethany Cox