Fazzinchi

Christmas Review #5 of 12

Marc Warren has clearly been unfeasably busy of late, in addition to his ongoing role in Hustle as the bubbly wide-boy Danny Blue, we’ve seen him appear in a show-stealing lead role as Elton Pope in Doctor Who, as the master assassin, Mr Teatime, in The Hogfather, and here as a rather well known Transylvanian. In another of the BBC’s recent adaptations of classic books and quite a surprising choice given the huge number of incarnations already created, Dracula gave us a fairly honest retelling of the famous Bram Stoker story. The mood was suitably gothic and the horror was more in the permeating suspense and impending sense of danger, than in the blood and gore and large scale scenes that would have been present in a big screen version. The cast was fantastic, and in addition to the title role, Dan Stevens’s Lord Holmwood and his frustrated wife played by Sophia Myles were compelling. It was great to see David Suchet turn up as Abraham van Helsing (a little more what I had in mind rather than the Hugh Jackman performance) but his role was very limited to a cameo at the start and a few of the key final scenes.  However, as with many of these “one-off” dramas these days, the door has been left open for a possible return and I’d love to see more of the vampire hunter.

So far, all of my Christmas reviews have been non-ITV productions and it gives a fair representation of my festive viewing habits.  Not wishing to be the fore-teller of bad news but I suspect that Michael Grade’s recent and shocking appointment into the hot seat represents a last chance for the once mighty commercial station.

Tags: BBC1, Doctor Who, Dracula, Hogfather, Hustle, Marc-Warren, Period Drama

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007 at 9:44 am and is filed under Period Drama . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.