Period Dramas

Latimer down the rabbithole

Latimer: “Argh…” I blink, staring bleary eyed at a person I know, but can’t remember. The obsession fire has dulled my senses.

“Are you okay?” they ask, raising a dubious eyebrow. They kick at my leg, forcing me to scramble up onto my feet.

“That is…” I wave my hands at them, my fingers threading the air. I start to remember who they are. “I think truly… pray some tea!”

“Oh jezz, it’s happened again hasn’t it!” She shakes her head and sighs.

“Ridley my old friend, pray some tea… I feel very ill!”

“I’ll make you the tea, but really you need to let go of all those BBC period dramas – you have to let go Latimer!”

“……”

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This all started with my kindle.

Yes, my kindle… and some 10 pride and prejudice variations that I have amassed like a hoarder, over the last few months.

It was inevitable that I’d get an urge to watch the actual Pride and Prejudice TV adaptions. I sat down and watched the 2005 movie – and it resulted in this comic thing…because my love for P&P overflowed!!

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And, one thing led to another, before I knew what I was doing, I was putting the Colin Firth P&P DVD into my laptop (note: yes, it is a truth universally acknowledged that all women are born with a copy of this series :)).

Ah, no you won't... it's why we love you so!
Ah, no you won’t… it’s why we love you!

I think if I tried to express in words, how much I love this series it would just come out as; “Ohhh Mr Darcy” and you’d know what I meant! 

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I’ve come to the conclusion that, to me, Mr Darcy is the ultimate man of any series – I think he might be the perfect literary man and the romance with Elizabeth and him; ah, it’s the most well done and most loved in my heart of hearts.

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I sashayed back into Austen, thinking; “Pride and Prejudice, that was fun, I shall be off again now…” but no – I ended up finding the 2009 BBC adaption of Emma – well more like it found me, as if it knew… “Hello there, would you like to watch me?” (and this started a massive chain reaction of drama watching!)

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The only Emma adaption I’ve ever seen was the movie, and I did like it, but didn’t love it. This 2009 BBC series was really good though – and Johnny Lee Miller (Mr Knightley) was lovely 🙂

When the series was over, I thought, “more! I want more!”. Yes, by this point on the obsession scale I am almost lost to coherent thought, like a kid hopped up on sugar. My high led me to the North and South BBC series (based on the novel by Elizabeth Gaskell)…

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Oh my god… this was brilliant!

Brilliant… Richard Armitage (Mr Thornton)… haha, how could I not love it (I can’t help but focus on the men, I mean they are a central theme to these period dramas!)! I don’t want to say anything much about this one – you should just go watch it, blissfully unaware of anything that will happen, it’s just so good.

And after that the journey went ever on an on – 

Little Dorrit (BBC series – very good, recommend this as much for the mystery as the romance! The father and uncle are so sweet, and pitiful and silly… my heart bled for them, really did)

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Mansfield Park (ITV movie – my main thought, Fanny is a very unfortunate name, very unfortunate!)

Northanger Abby (ITV movie – It’s a bit of an odd Austen story – but the ending was very sweet… – just look, Henry’s a lovely Austen man!!)

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Sense and Sensibility (2008 BBC series –  I’m not a fan of Sense and Sensibility but this was a very nicely done series)

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I started to think, that the country life of a period drama was a very sweet one – with all these ladies of leisure, painting, reading, drinking copious amounts of tea and walking to the ‘parsonage’ down glorious sunny country lanes.

I started to admire it all, thinking it looked blissful. Then (as if to test me) the power went in our house (because a relay station exploded, or something!) leaving me standing around for two hours admiring the calm and peace of the warm sunny evening, reading from my kindle.

Then, I got bored and ran around screaming; “where is the power! Where is it! I want power! I want tea!”

When it finally came back, I did a little dance and song about, “power” and how it’s awesome.

So much for my dreamy wistful side – still, it’s so much fun to be lost in period dramas – truly; I highly recommend it 🙂

Any suggestions are more than welcome (I’m running out of dramas! Is Downton Abbey any good?!)!