Absolutely stunning

I’ve just finished watching it and found it not only the best programme on British TV this holiday season by miles but one of the best single dramas I can ever remember.

I haven’t read any of Waters’s books but saw Tipping the Velvet, which I felt was ludicrous nonsense – badly made and unconvincing. I saw bits of Fingersmith and didn’t think much of it. But Affinity – wow. I thought it was utterly superb, wiping the floor with both previous adaptations. It was gripping as a mystery, touching as a love story and intriguing as a ghost story. I was completely hooked from start to finish, and the final drama of whether Selina will ‘come to Margaret’ was almost unbearable. I guessed it might end badly, but was still stunned at the end.

The music was fabulous, the atmosphere was incredible (the stark, bleak, almost monochrome photography, the amazing location used for Millbank’s cells, the wonderfully dark house) and the acting was good all round, but if Anna Madeley doesn’t win an award for this, I’ll be amazed. Perfectly cast, with her fragile porcelain beauty, her performance was extraordinary. She truly convinced as a young woman uncertain of her position and her inner feelings. Madeley brought out all her character’s repression and innocence and hopes and fears with just a quiver of her lips or a frown. She seemed like a teenager one minute, an elegant woman the next. And Zoe Tapper showed that she is so wasted in rubbish like Survivors. Great support from many of the other (female) cast, especially.

I’d now like to read the book, as I felt the complexity of themes in this were really thought-provoking – spiritualism as a metaphor for forbidden love, the pressures and expectations on Victorian women – it was great. And to the poster who mentioned that in the book Margaret was abused by her father – yes, I can believe that in a line of dialogue that Theo uttered when he tried to attack her – something about forgetting the unpleasantness of before, implying just this.

Seriously, this – which I taped, and kept till tonight to give myself what I hoped would be an end-of-holiday treat – was an adult, serious, intelligent and wonderful drama that beats anything around. And made by ITV – BBC, hang your head in shame.