Bleak House Blurbs
Posted at 4:27 PM (PST) on Tuesday, November 1, 2005

BBC News: Small Screen Hits and Misses
16.12.05

I've watched every episode of Bleak House and it is as good as it could be. I hadn't read the book, but from the moment the opening credits rolled, I was hooked on the drama. Gillian Anderson gives a brilliant performance as the damaged and desperate Lady Dedlock.
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The Mirror
09.12.05

There's only one more week to go before Andrew Davies' adaptation comes to an end. To say it has been perfect scarcely does it justice.
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The Scotsman
04.11.05

And as for Gillian Anderson, anyone who assumed she'd retired on the basis that she'd be forever typecast as Agent Scully will have to think again. As Lady Dedlock she's the brooding star of the show, all Gothic pallor and eyes that hint at a tragedy waiting to happen.
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The Evening Standard
03.11.05

The most enigmatic character continues to be Lady Dedlock - not only hauntingly beautiful but also made beautifully haunted in Gillian Anderson's excellent portrayal.
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Mail on Sunday
30.10.05

The goodness of Esther (Anna Maxwell Martin) shines in a tender, underlit way, and Gillian Anderson's breathtaking Lady Dedlock encapsulates loss, isolation, loneliness and sadness: a life glimpsed, lost and now half lived.
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Sunday Mirror
10.30.05

Emma Williams, who plays Rosa (Lady Dedlock's maid), worked very closely with Gillian Anderson.

"She could afford to be a diva, but she's lovely. The first thing she said to me was, 'why are all my girls so tall?' I'm 5ft 7in and she's tiny. But she looks stunning, even without make-up."

As part of Rosa's duties, Emma had to style Gillian's hair on camera. "She had this amazing wig. I'm putting combs through it, thinking, 'Please don't let me ruin it', remembers Emma. "Gillian thought mine was a wig too, but it was my own. One time, she thought I had a hair loose, so she grabbed it and ended up pulling a big chunk out of my head."
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Sunday Times
30.10.05

If you want to see the depth and range of acting talent in this country, Bleak House is essential viewing. Four episodes in, and there has not been one performance that is dud. They cover the full range of the spectrum, from the quiet subtlety of Esther and John (Anna Maxwell Martin and Denis Lawson) to the broad comedy of Krook and Guppy (Johnny Vegas and Burn Gorman).

There are actors doing the gloriously unexpected (Nathaniel Parker and Gillian Anderson) and stalwarts who are congenitally incapable of being dull ­ Timothy West, Charles Dance, Warren Clarke and Ian Richardson. Given this astonishing range of acting talent, it is a pity that so much television is clogged up with dismal reality shows, dire sitcoms and mediocre police dramas. Thank heavens for Bleak House.
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Daily Telegraph
29.10.05

Episode four of Andrew Davies's superb adaptation, and Esther (Anna Maxwell Martin) meets Lady Dedlock. Gillian Anderson's flickers of unplaced recognition, first in church and then sheltering from the rain, are magic moments. It's all so tense, so elegantly measured and even better as the plot, with the appearence of Inspector Bucket, now comes together for literature's first detective chase.
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Leicester Mercury
28.10.05

Gillian Anderson was impressive as the unhappy Lady Dedlock, who has a secret that could ruin her. If you ask me, she was wasted in The X Files.
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Western Morning News
28.10.05

The performances are exquisite and in a huge ensemble piece it would be tempting not to single out individuals, but Anna Maxwell Martin and Gillian Anderson simply shine in demanding roles.
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Newsquest Media Group Newspapers
28.10.05

Lady Dedlock stared out of the window at the rain. "I am bored to death with it. Bored to death with this place, bored to death with this life, bored to death with myself."

Goodness, what an unhappy bunny. More Lady Deadloss than Lady Dedlock. As played by Gillian Anderson, she was the best thing in the opening episode of the heavily-hyped adaptation of Charles Dickens' Bleak House.
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The Observer
30.10.05

In a cast of such rare magnificence (everybody from Charles Dance to Denis Lawson to Nathaniel Parker to Anna Maxwell Martin is, basically, brilliant) it's tough to play favourites, but it's a pretty safe bet I won't have been the only viewer unable to take her eyes off Gillian Anderson's bewitchingly haunted Lady Dedlock, the sort of woman over whom, in another era, ships would be launched and medium-sized wars waged.

Not only providing some proper, old-fashioned, movie-star beauty (that awesome nose, those sensual lips ... I don't remember Scully ever being quite so feast-your-eyes lovely as this, though, admittedly, it is more of a Whartoneseque rather than a Dickensian sort of beauty), Anderson also out-Paltrows the reigning Transatlantic Brit with a faultless English accent, while also managing not to come over as remotely self-conscious or thespy when those eyes are busy hinting at a thousand desperate emotions throbbing just beneath a barely composed facade.

In short, if I were a male viewer, I think I would probably already have fallen hopelessly in love. As it is, I'm pretty obsessed and if I ever decided to go under the knife, I would like to emerge looking like Lady Dedlock, though being very, very good and nice and lovely and kind and generous for the rest of my life, while also subscribing to a belief in reincarnation, may be the less risky option.
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Financial Times
28.10.05

Bleak House is as good as any period drama the BBC has done since Pride and Prejudice and certainly the best Dickens in recent memory. As is often the case with Dickens, it is rarely the naive and insipid central characters who carry the tale, fine though all these performers are. It is the meatier supporting roles that make the story sing, and here the viewer is well served, be it in the brooding menace of Charles Dance's heartless lawyer Tulkinghorn, or the wounded silence of Gillian Anderson's Lady Dedlock. Likewise, Nathaniel Parker's feckless Skimpole and Matthew Kelly's Turveydrop provide splendid Dickensian comic relief. Even Johnny Vegas, manages to extend himself beyond his normal comic persona, to deliver a grasping and ultimately combustible Krook.
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The Independent
28.10.05

The casting was also just as you dreamed it. Johnny Vegas was put on earth to play a Dickensian low-life, and here he was, red-faced and menacing as Mr Krook, the gin-soaked proprietor of a rag and bottle shop. Gillian Anderson was handsomely imperious as Lady Dedlock, her erect posture vying with her frock for creaking stiffness. Like any soap in its early stages, much of it seemed strange, though you knew that within a few weeks, your life would be empty without it.
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The Evening Standard
28.10.05

At the heart of the tale is a mystery, or rather a series of interlocking puzzles. Three young folk have come to town to see if they might gain from the long-contested Jarndyce will, oblivious of the fact that everyone within hovering distance has an interest in the outcome, not least Lady Dedlock, played by Gillian Anderson in the style known as cut-glass gorgeous.
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Radio Times Online
28.10.05

Watching this extraordinary version of Dickens's novel feels less like watching a TV drama and more like sampling a strange other world, one that extends beyond the screen and has a life of its own. Afterwards you may be surprised to find yourself back in the 21st century and not murky 1850s London - that's how absorbing it is. Scriptwriter Andrew Davies must have gulped at the task of making Dickens's doorstop of a novel fit on the small screen. Even his dramatisation skills feel stretched by the effort of weaving into a watchable narrative with a truly astonishing cast that stretches from Charles Dance to Johnny Vegas, it's Gillian Anderson who, despite having only a handful of lines, is at the heart of the drama. It's a magnetic performance (one of many) in a tremendous piece of television.
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The Herald
28.10.05

I will risk one bet: Gillian Anderson, formerly of The X-Files, is going to prove a revelation as Lady Dedlock. She had precious few lines, and spoke them magnificently.
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The Telegraph
28.10.05

If Maxwell Martin seemed able to express entire pages in a glance, she was matched by a ravishing Gillian Anderson as the arrogant, tragic Lady Dedlock. (Viewers who know her only from The X Files must have had quite a surprise.)
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The Mirror
28.10.05

Gillian Anderson continues to quietly dazzle in part two of this unmissable adaptation.
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The Times
27.10.05

Dickens’s novel has been given the full 15-part BBC treatment, with scripts by Andrew Davies and a who’s who of talent in which every role has been cast to perfection and every actor plays it to the hilt. Although it has been filmed using the edgiest of camera-work, the story is so engrossing and the acting so ripe that it could just as well be performed on a bare stage in modern dress without losing any of its impact. It is wonderful, too, to see familiar faces acting against type. Gillian Anderson (of X-Files fame) as Lady Deadlock oozes world-weariness from every pore; Nathaniel Parker is so convincing as the feckless Horace Skimpole that you want to hit him; and even Johnny Vegas gets drunk with a purpose. Rather than dumbing down a classic, this glorious adaptation transforms soap opera into art.
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The Mirror
27.10.05

But Gillian Anderson's mesmerising Lady Dedlock is in a league of her own.
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Time Out
26.10.05

"Sandwiches! I'd like peanut butter, lettuce, Tabasco and mayonnaise," says Gillian Anderson. 'It's the least English combination I can think of.' Charles Dance, who is standing next to her, says 'Cucumber sandwiches for me, I think.' Both actors are trussed up in heavy Victorian costumes - all tight corsets and stiff, high collars - for their roles in the BBC's adaptation of 'Bleak House'; it's 1.30pm and it will be another hour and a half before anyone can stop for lunch.



Not only is the soap-sized structure more faithful to the period, it's also an attempt to bring in soap-sized audiences. The piece has been cast to appeal to younger viewers, with Johnny Vegas, Alistair McGowan and Liza Tarbuck making appearances. The star, though, is Anderson, whose sinister, secretive Lady Dedlock should chill viewers as much as any spooky mystery from 'The X Files'.
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Daily Express
22.10.05

"Despite the fact there is absolutely no warmth in the relationship between Tulkinghom and Lady Dedlock, I really bonded with Gillian," Charles Dance says. "She has an extraordinary pre-Raphaelite look about her."