| ![Cranford : Complete BBC Series [2007]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51fGlyaUo1L._SL75_.jpg)
 enlarge | Director: Simon Curtis
Actors: Judi Dench, Philip Glenister, Francesca Annis, Michael Gambon, Lesley Manville
Studio: 2 Entertain Video
Category: DVD
List Price: £19.99
Buy New: £11.94
You Save: £8.05 (40%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 67
Format: Colour, Dolby, Pal
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
Number Of Items: 2
Running Time: 275
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 5014503254322
ASIN: B000Z1TYT2
Theatrical Release Date: November 18, 2007
Release Date: February 11, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New and Fully Guaranteed - Over 90% of orders are dispatched same day or next day by First Class post. Please note Danish customers may incur custom charges.
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| Customer Reviews:
Apponyi June 7, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I liked the series, however, there is a slight anachronism, something the set designer should have prevented. In the last scene, on the second disc, Judy Dench and the others eat orages on plates. The plates are by Herend, its famous pattern Apponyi, rasberry. However the pattern dates only from the 1870, whereas the movie was set in the 1840.Herend, and that particular patter, became very famous in England indeed, though much later
Heartwarming? Yes. But clever, too, with outstanding performances and a fine screenplay May 27, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
The opportunity to watch so many of Britain's great female actors working together in parts that allow them to demonstrate just how good they are is one of the two immensely satisfying aspects of Cranford, the five-part, nearly 300-minute BBC drama. The other is the story itself -- a kind of Austen-like tale of good manners, gossip, punctilious courtesies and extraordinarily detailed production values. Cranford may be a genteel and gentle soap opera, but it glows with warmth, humor and the occasional dramatic crisis.
Cranford is a small English village, tidy and well kept. The time is the early 1840's. The village hasn't changed much over the years. The established ladies of the village plan to keep it that way. For the next 12 months of Cranford we'll see a new, young doctor come to town, the affects of a train line being built closer and closer to the village, romance and marriages, typhoid, death and poverty. We'll see why some think the lower classes should not be taught to read or write, how it really hurts to have your leg amputated, how a woman of a certain age who is not married may well expect to live a lonely life. We'll also see friendships, misunderstandings, the love for a cow and the deep comfort of accepted ways. Keep in mind that the story isn't simply a bucolic tale of a world long gone. We're going to deal with class distinctions, poverty, condescension to women, and customs that can strangle affection. There are several story lines that develop and weave around each other.
At the heart of the story are the women of Cranford, for whom gossip is a way of life. Eileen Atkins plays the elderly Miss Deborah Jenkyns, a severe woman who is not without feelings and who is the acknowledged arbiter of what is proper. Her sister, Miss Mattie Jenkyns, played by Judi Dench, is a bit scatterbrained but a warm and empathetic person. And we have Miss Pole (Imelda Staunton), a lightening transmitter of juicy information; Mrs. Forrester (Julia MacKenzie), a widow who is a bit of a ditherer but good-hearted; and Miss Jamieson (Barbara Flynn), better off than the others which she is careful to display, and more conventional, but prepared to be brought around. There is Mary Smith (Lisa Dillon), who comes to live with the Jenkyns sisters to escape a busybody stepmother and who finds more than she thought she would. Thankfully, she has a good mind and a sense of humor. And there is Lady Ludlow (Francesca Annis), the grand, aging lady in the grand estate nearby who learns to acknowledge that others may be correct, while not seeming to apologize for her class standards. What of the men? They're around, but for the most part they exist simply to provide the framework for the women's stories. Such superior actors as Michael Gambon, Jim Carter and Martin Shaw play them.
When we leave Cranford five hours after we arrived, we've smiled a lot, teared up a few times, and have come to admire these women, their capacity for friendship and their desire to keep the future from arriving too soon. If you hear the term "heartwarming," don't be put off. This program is intelligently written and is acted with extraordinary and underplayed skill.
More Please! May 3, 2008
Enjoyed every minute of this beautiful series. A well told story, brilliant actors, sumptuous style, truly wonderful!
Fine weave April 27, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
This a triumph for all concerned. Quality through and through, right down to its boots (and the cat in one). Andrew Davies, scriptwriter on "Wives and Daughters", realised Elizabeth Gaskell's important creative legacy: she told us HOW people lived 140 years ago - their food, carriages, clothes, finances, fears, prejudices and funny bones - without the Dickensian filter of caricature. Sue Birtwhistle and Co. have created a new story from Gaskell fragments that is completely true to the strength and spirit of her. Unusual is the focus on the lives of mainly older women living without men. This may seem, at first glance, a modern feminist fancy. But war, illness, family and social impediments, and choice, produced many a spinster and widow in those days, and if Cranford seems somewhat overstocked with them, well, that allows us so much more fun. The story is cleverly plotted, often poignant and moving, and blessed with wonderful dialogue that shimmers and darts between the many endearing characters. The richness of the weave, indeed, is in the range and depth of characterisation. This series takes a high place among television period dramas.
Touching and involving but SO grim! April 24, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Absolutely faultless in terms of acting, story, setting and wardrobe, but in every episode something miserable lands on the village. For the last three of the five episodes I was predicting who would die next, who would get a horrible disease and fever, or who would appear out of the blue and then who would get together with who. There's so much warmth in the story that it's hard to dislike it and the feel good side is very high, but you have to pay for that! Death haunts every episode and tears flow like rivers all the time and that would stop me watching it again even though the rest of the series is so enjoyable. I would have marked it down for that, but to be harsh on such a well made series would be wrong. The goodness in human nature holds everything together and resilience in adversity is at the heart of Cranford.
When a cast of great actors gets together and there's not an ego in sight, this is what you get.
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