Enchanted Serenity of Period Films: denis lawson

5-part series on ITV beginning February 3rd, 2011

"Marchlands is the gripping story of three different families living in the same house in the 1960’s, 1980’s and present day. The families are linked by the spirit of a young girl – the 1960’s family’s daughter who died in mysterious circumstances. It’s a brand new five-part drama from ITV Studios written for ITV by Stephen Greenhorn (Glasgow Kiss, Doctor Who).

Alex Kingston (Doctor Who, Hope Springs, ER) and Jodie Whittaker (Cranford, Wired, Venus) will star alongside Dean Andrews (Ashes to Ashes, Life on Mars), Shelley Conn (Strike Back, Mistresses), Anne Reid (Upstairs, Downstairs, Five Days), Elliot Cowan (The Fixer, Lost in Austen), Denis Lawson (Criminal Justice, The Passion), Jamie Thomas King (Mad Men, The Tudors) and Tessa Peake-Jones (Only Fools and Horses).

ITVS Senior Executive Kate Lewis and Creative Director of Drama, Kate Bartlett are the executive producers, along with Stephen Greenhorn. The 5 x 60 min series is directed by James Kent (The Secret Diaries of Anne Lister, Margaret) and produced by Chrissy Skinns (Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Auf Wiedersehen Pet). It was filmed on location around London.

The drama has been commissioned by ITV’s drama commissioning team Laura Mackie and Sally Haynes. Marchlands, previously named The Oaks, is the first commission to come from the creative collaboration between ITVS and Twentieth Century Fox. The drama is based on an original US pilot from David Schulner.

“Marchlands is a really original concept that blends relationship drama with an atmospheric ghost story,” said Laura. “Stephen’s scripts are compellingly written and this is a very distinctive drama to add to our slate.”

“This is a strongly authored, ambitious piece and we’re thrilled to have such an exciting and talented cast on board,” said Kate Lewis, Executive Producer.

Marchlands marks the first commission to come from the creative collaboration between ITV & Twentieth Century Fox.

Bleak House is one of the best Dickens adaptations to date. The mini-series form allows Dickens' panoramic view, brimming with eccentric characters and complex turns of plot, to sprawl out without losing an iota of suspense or momentum. Two innocent young orphans (Patrick Kennedy and Carey Mulligan) are the potential heirs to a fortune, but their fates are snarled in a monumental legal battle known as Jarndyce and Jarndyce. But the heart of the story is another orphan, Esther Summerson (Anna Maxwell Martin), whose mysterious parentage proves to be intertwined with the fate of the Jarndyce wards and the aloof Lady Dedlock (Gillian Anderson, The X-Files). Dickens' story twines through an excoriating vision of the legal system to heartbreaking domestic drama to a murder investigation to near-Gothic horror, all broken into utterly delicious half-hour segments (after the hour-long opening episode). Martin is utterly beguiling, homely at one moment and luminous the next; Anderson's grippingly eerie and brittle performance will delight her fans. But to single out anyone seems absurd, because every character--from the vicious lawyer Tulkinghorn (Charles Dance, White Mischief) to the foppish parasite Skimpole (Nathaniel Parker, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries) to the simpering clerk Guppy (Burn Gorman)--is intricately drawn, all hitting a mesmerizing balance between caricature and stark emotional honesty. Bleak House demonstrates that humor, pathos, and social criticism can all be contained in one wonderfully entertaining package. --Bret Fetzer from Amazon.com