The Canterville Ghost

Ignore the off-putting opening minutes of this, where Caroline Catz and James Lance try to speak with American accents. This is a well made and enjoyable family entertainment with some fine performances from the rather large cast. (I thought Laurel Waghorn was particularly good as Virginia Otis.)

I don't know how much this deviates from the original story by Oscar Wilde, but I thought this version was well written and quite affecting as Sir Simon's backstory is revealed.

As a Briton, I didn't care much for some of the UK versus US stuff, but I guess this had to have an element of locals versus immigrants and railing against the strange ways of foreigners.

The title of this review is a line from the series uttered by Jeff rawle's character, 'Bluey', the Duke of Stilton.

It pretty much sums up this series, as it was, in fact, tripe.

It's a shame, really, as we were looking forward to this, but suffered through about 25 minutes of this garbage before switching off.

Aside from the appalling American accents, the main protagonists were painfully bad and the whole thing played to the US myth that all Brits live in stately homes (or Romany Gypsy caravans?!). Some of the better-known cast members (Hadyn Gwynne, Jeff Rawle, Anthony Head & Jonty Stephens) should have known better and avoided this travesty. And it's for them that I gave it three stars. All of the cast below 30 need acting lessons.

Watched this over Christmas with my wife and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The cast were uniformly good,(..tho the twin boys were a little stilted,at times,not a dealbreaker,though...). Always had a soft spot for James Lance since he helped Alan Partridge tune in to 'Bangkok Chick Boys' in his Travelodge Room and he was good in this with a passable American accent,(..ditto,his screen wife..). Haydn Gwynn essentially played the same part she played in the riotous,irreverent 'The Windsors'....absolutely nothing wrong with that,might I add but for us the star of this production was Tony Head as the Ghost,making us smile whenever he was on screen. It was just good old-fashioned Family entertainment and we loved it.

I followed James Lance here bc he was so terrific as Trent Crimm and this seemed like an oddly similar premise, only with Lasso, they hired Americans for American roles and Brits for British roles - and with this show, no such effort was made - and it shows. The script must have been written by a child and the third grader's friends are the producers, but the idea is cute and it's sweet that they're going for Americans inspire Brits Part II. Still, sadly, even the wonderful Anthony Head is AWFUL here. The only value in this show is unintentional humor, but....a laugh's a laugh. Unless this was produced for a British Nickolodeon type of channel for elementary school viewers, this one's a pass.

I thought this mini series was a great family series. There isn't a bunch of violence or sex and it is family entertainment. I miss really great series' like this . I hope they make more.