Clare Jackson

First; The sound levels are a mess. Even when a single man is shouting,a high volume setting is needed to hear it. "Normal" volume speech requires a very high volume setting. However,the sound of crowd noise and the music is so loud and harsh that tv volume has to be radically lowered and suddenly,to avoid ear damage. Second; The accents. Those represented as Irish Nationals have fake accents so "Oirish" that you need a Shileghligh and a Leprechaun's pot of gold just to interpret them. Third; The intrusive music is straight out of the 1990s. What's the point of a historic setting,with all the lavishly expensive attempts at a true depiction of such,with a silly soundtrack? I've seen this series described as, "A historic epic with Peaky Blinders swagger". If by that "swagger" they mean brawling crowd scenes set to rap/garage music then whoever came up with the concept of this comedy of errors must have had a few too many jars of the black stuff. Fourth; The acting is actually shocking. Overall; Another much touted sad disappointment.

The opening titles and scene gave me quite the hope for an interesting and well made historical production. Then they started speaking. They spoke with modern English upper middle class accents and phraseology. If I shut my eyes I could be listening to someone from modern Surburbia. It continued as a third person entered the scene and I noticed quite modern hairstyling and excellent dentistry. That's when I switched off. I would have liked to watch a little more but the clashing between the ages was too loud.