brian jacobs

Here comes Dan, Dan, the mysteries man, with another sally into Templar Twaddle. The vehicle this time is a TV film so very, very awful it's a mystery anyone bothered to spend money making it and a mystery to me that I wasted over 7 hours of my life watching it. The pointless and ridiculous plot isn't helped by appalling acting which largely consists of the characters, especially the leading lady, gabbling sotto voce in Esperanto and vying to see who can achieve the most words per second. However, the dialogue is so stagey and improbable, that its inaccessibility is rather a blessing. The screenplay is embarrassingly bad, beaten only by Eddie Izzard's ludicrous ponytail. He also appears to have a right arm six inches longer than the left, since it's the same length even though it's missing a hand. Remarkably, this hand appears to have been neatly severed with no visible cut marks or loss of blood and actually turns in a better acting performance than its owner

Bearing in mind how many wonderful stories Dickens wrote, why do we only ever see continual adaptations of Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations and David Copperfield? This one is particularly dire, and I'm astonished that a notable actress like Olivia Coleman agreed to appear in this load of tawdry tosh. It leaves you wondering whether the screenwriters ever actually read the book. It's been a while since I did, but I'm pretty sure no one smoked dope, engaged in S&M, used foul language (Victorian ladies using the f-word - come on!) or acted out sexual fantasies. Dickens was a renowned reformist and champion of the poor, and most of his books better reflect the appalling conditions they had to endure in the 19th century than this pile of faeces. Anyone who thinks that this series is a an accurate interpretation of Dickens is delusional. And, by the way, you won't find rhubarb sprouting in December! On the other hand, it was probably the best acting performance in this ghastly series.