Flanagan does it again

Mike Flanagan's adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw generates a lot of new material - and 99% of it lands very well. I was sceptical of Flanagan's decision to delve into the backstories of 'Peter Quint' and 'Miss Jessel', but the tale he came up with absolutely works.

Flanagan's Bly is far more haunted than James', with ghosts that range from sympathetic to downright fearsome. The cast are excellent (Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Victoria Pedretti, and the child actors Amelie Bea Smith and Benjamin Evan Ainsworth deserve special mention). There are times it drags (at nine episodes, it feels as though overall it could shed close to the equivalent of one episode's runtime), but what works succeeds SO well, both as ghost story AND tragic love story (with episodes five and eight containing some of the finest television drama I've seen).

9/10