What on earth was that?
I knew ITV would cock it up!
Good points:
The mood, tone and atmosphere right - more or less (disappointed at the lack of humour).
The best Quilp (although that's not saying much).
The bad:
Bad casting for Nell and Kit - passive and a bunch of ciphers, the lot of them.
Kit's storyline completely cut; his mum, his brothers, his employment, and his relationship with Nell (reduced the dramatic impact of the death scene) and Barbara.
Nell and Grandfather's long trek cut.
The visit to industrial Birmingham; the squalor, poverty and child imprisonment all squashed into a 5 second shot.
One of Dickens' most ballsy women, Sally Brass, reduced to whimpering, crying and willing to act upon any order!
Richard Swiveller's presence reduced to a few minutes here and there, his relationship (or lack thereof) with the Marchioness sped up and then comically marries her straight after we witness Nell's death! We don't even find out who the Marchioness' parents were!
The schoolteacher storyline and his relationship with the dying schoolboy and Nell nowhere to be seen!
That devastatingly harrowing ordeal Nell undertakes in following the two sisters doesn't make it in.
The passages of Nell wandering the graveyard and the church and her meeting with the widow, cut (so many great lines that could've been used ).
I can't believe they had grandfather pushing Nell into the street, growling at her: "If you love me, then find me money!".
The death sequence was badly handled: where was the lead up? (she dies because she begged in the rain and followed grandfather in the snow?) How on earth did the lodger become her father? The most infamous death scene in Victorian literature reduced to "I'm your father" and "I love you too".
Very disappointed. I feel as though I've watched an hour long trailer instead of a fully fledged adaptation; ITV gave it no room to breath: it felt rushed and badly edited; as usual the BBC do these things better.