Our April Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman: Tony Jordan's DICKENSIAN

 

This post is written 

by our monthly 

correspondent, 

Lee Liberman

Picture this (find it on Prime Video) — Dickens' most iconic personages, portrayed by best Brit actors and written by formidable scribe Tony Jordan (East Enders, Life on Mars, Hustle), doing business with each other cheek by jowl in Dickens’ London hot spots like the The Three Cripples Pub and The Old Curiosity Shop. 

Fagin’s (Anton Lesser, far right, above) den where he recruits boys to become pick pockets is nearby. Same for the home of the Barbary sisters, Frances and Honoria, and Satis House, the Havisham residence. It happens here that Amelia Havisham and Honoria Barbary are best friends as young women, both having great expectations, only to join the long-suffering. We know from the novel that Miss Havisham was betrayed and spent her mature years holding court at her grimy wedding table dressed in her decayed wedding dress. But our gothic Dickensian is the made-up prequel to all that; here she is a young beauty (Tuppence Middleton, of Downton Abbey, Mank) who shines with demure confidence as she helms her father’s company, tho we are sorry to watch her half-brother Arthur Havisham, (Joseph Quinn, Howard’s End) decompensate in self-hate and are filled with dread at her adoration of the duplicitous Meriwether Compeyson (Tom Weston-Jones of World Without End, Copper), below, knowing what is to follow. 

Three main plots weave through the 10 episodes of Dickensian. One is the inventive backstory of Miss Havisham who has been fixed in our memory as the man-hating, jilted bride. Second is the tale of Bleak House’s heart-warming Honoria Barbary, in love with young Captain Hawdon (below), but here on a soul-killing journey to wed dreary Sir Leicester Deadlock at the connivance of her jealous sister. (Honoria, Sophie Rundle of Peaky Blinders and Gentleman Jack, is not lauded enough; she is as good a tough mob moll as she is a tragic heroine). 

The third story is the mystery of who killed Jacob Marley (Peter Firth) of ‘A Christmas Carol’ (‘Marley was dead to begin with’) that is adjudicated by lawyer Jaggers (fine character actor, John Heffernan) and investigated throughout by terribly decent Inspector Bucket of Bleak House, until all possible suspects have been ruled out except the least likely one. The dutiful-inspector task falls to the impeccable Stephen Rea (below, of The Crying Game, Interview with a Vampire, The Company of Wolves) whose mobile face and precise articulation is perfect as a good Dickensian, just perfect, in a nod to the start of dedicated police investigation. 

Subplots involve miserly Mr. Scrooge, Ned Dennehy (Peaky Blinders, Outlander), who is deliciously bad and all too far from redemption here, and the impoverished, put-upon Cratchit family, including the now renown Phoebe Dynevor (below, of Bridgerton, now filming season 2) as pretty young Martha Cratchit (below). 

Comic relief is supplied by the Bumbles, Madam Scold and her toadie Mister who run the children’s workhouse without an ounce of kindness or common sense (below) 

and by Pauline Collins (below) who has had a long career as a character actress beginning with the vamp who seduced the rich young master in the original Upstairs, Downstairs (1971-73). Collins, now past 80, plays the tippling Mrs. Gamp here, in a satiric take on the terrible state of nursing pre-Florence Nightingale. 

These (and more) groundlings are clever but tiresome on repeat; Tony Jordan’s wallow in Dickensian caricature adds length without depth. (An adorer of the theater, Dickens was an actor and mimic, from which came his enduring comic characters.) At the other extreme, screen-writer Jordan (below) was much more successful in harnessing our emotions to the pain of betrayal and loss suffered by the two heroines, Honoria and Miss Havisham, in contrast to Dickens, himself, whose female characters could be tiresomely mad or bad. Some prudent cuts might have helped save Dickensian from the chopping block. One has to wait too long for the good parts — the more emotional parts. After its run in 2015-16, the series was not picked up for renewal, sadly for the loss of many delights within. (That's Mr. Jordan, below.)

Charles Dickens himself (1812-1870), buried in Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey, was one of England’s most successful novelists during his lifetime and posthumously — much has been written that describes his life and motivations. He was more of a social and political critic (in tune with today’s democratic left) than a conveyor of deep sensibility or psychological depth. His characters are more cartoon-like than real but invented to castigate the aristocracy, the rising merchant class, and the exploitation of the working poor. He popularized serial storytelling in newspapers — streaming TV leaps right off the pages of the Dickens playbook. He mined his own life experience such as his father’s stay in debtors’ prison that became the work-house setting in ‘Little Dorrit’ and his own 10-hour days as a child in a boot-blacking factory leading to indignation that working class children endured such. He is quoted in a New York speech: “Virtue shows quite well in rags and patches as she does in purple and fine linen.” 

The unfeeling treatment of Dickens by his mother is thought to be the cause of some grimly unpleasant women in the Dickens lexicon. He himself was flighty in love (though not particularly so by today’s standards). He tired of his wife or they of each other, separating households after 10 children, divorce being unthinkable then, falling in love with a young actress kept hidden from the public. He supported them all — wife, mistress, children, servants— not to mention being widely known otherwise for his kindness and philanthropy. Dickens was prodigious in his short lifetime (58 years) but we don’t revisit him for interiority; instead he is beloved for verbal genius, memorable characters, and observations about social ills that repeat back on us today like indigestion. To purists who would have no meddling with the work of an original, I say never mind, just enjoy this evanescent Dickens for the nostalgia and the pleasure of re-imaginings. 

First time on DVD! THE IT CROWD: The Complete Series -- from MPI Media Group

Watching one of British television's (hell, television from anywhere) great series, THE IT CROWD, which ran from 2006 through 2013, proves just as spectacularly funny and off-the-wall an experience today, via the new DVD release of the complete series from MPI Media Group, as it did discovering it for yourself via the various sources it has graced down the years since its debut. If there is a single drawback, that would be the crass and stupid laugh track that accompanies it -- and which seems even louder and more crass now, sometimes nearly drowning out the delightful dialog, than it did a decade ago when the series made its debut.

The product of a very creative, talented and probably slightly unhinged writer/ director named Graham Linehan (shown at left), the show mixes to marvelous effect the talents of this funny fellow with those of his just-about-perfectly tailored cast of three leading actors plus several excellent supporting ones. Add to this the choice of the ideal workplace and occupation: the IT (Internet Technology) department located in the scuzzy basement quarters of a major corporation that seems to produce nothing and is run by perhaps the most obtuse, narcissistic and hilarious of bosses (think a British version of Donald Trump, if that sleazeball idiot were at all -- except for his appearance -- funny).

How all this works together for maximum effect -- silliness (based closely enough on reality to smart and sting) goosed into great, hilarious mountains of humor that arrives equally from character and situation -- is the stuff of legend. The cast, most of whom have gone on to some renown, includes Chris O'Dowd (above, center, and at bottom), Katherine Parkinson (above, left, and below) and Richard Ayoade (above, right, and at bottom)

Among the great episodes (there are many) is the one about the speech having to do with the Internet, in which one of our trio actually shows the audience the Internet itself! This is, I think, one of the funniest episodes I have ever seen because it makes such great use of so much that we think we know (and don't know) about the way we live now, while providing its characters (and actors) with the juiciest of moments to run with. And, oh god, they do.

A word must be said for subsidiary actors like Matt Berry (above, as the boss) and Noel Fielding (below, as, well, you'll discover who he is), both of whom add such bizarre and memorable moments to the show.

I do wish this amazing series could be separated from its god-awful laugh track. But I suppose we must be grateful for what blessings we have. And those, my friends, are copious indeed.

The new Five-Disc Boxed Set of the complete series hits the street this coming Tuesday, November 1, from MPI Media Group and includes the entire four seasons, plus the stand-alone program, The Internet Is Coming, which has never before been available here in the USA -- and is every bit as funny and wonderful as all that preceded it. Extras include a very nice 16-minute interview with Linehan and his cast.  

The October Sunday Corner with Lee Liberman THE LAST KINGDOM -- How England Was Made

"If you were alive in 880, the word 'England' would mean nothing," says Bernard Cornwell, author of "The Last Kingdom," his chronicles of Saxon history and the basis for the TV series from BBC now streaming on Netflix. After Rome fell, England splintered into unaffiliated fiefdoms; King Arthur, his Knights, and Tristan and Isolde made it out alive in our imaginations from the dark of ancient Briton. Various Germanic tribes called Saxons invaded in the 5th century. By the 9th, when the story of Uhtred the warrior (above) and King Alfred begins, the Viking Danes had moved in on the Saxon kingdoms and were picking them off -- all except Alfred's in Wessex, where brawn would be outmaneuvered by brains.

Early in that war the Danes had Alfred pinned down in several square miles of swamp until 878 when he called up swords from all over England and inflicted a decisive defeat on joint Danish armies. Alfred's descendants regained the 3 Northern kingdoms of Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria, fulfilling his dream of uniting England under one king (and one God -- Alfred was pious). His foresight and strategic win in 878 (Season 1's conclusion) led historians of the 1500's to call him "the Great". Without Alfred, England might now be Daneland and Danish our mother tongue.

Cornwell (shown below) uses his Saxon adventures to tell the "incredibly untaught " story of how England was won, and he spins good hero in the vein of Horatio Hornblower or loose-cannon Richard Sharpe. (His many historical novels include the Napoleonic era Sharpe tales starring Sean Bean in a lengthy PBS film series.) Cornwell's Saxon chronicles are masterful water and land battle epics -- though you have to dig out from under sword and shield to piece together historical narrative or gain context. Still, it's for exposure to King Alfred and his constructs of civilian order that the TV series has food value, unless gritty battlefield action and strategy is your thing. Then the novels and TV series are total feasts. Season 2 of "The Last Kingdom" is filming now (Series 1 filmed in Wales, Denmark, and Hungary). It contains characters who were real contemporaries of Alfred -- a game of thrones anchored more in history than white-walkers and dragons.

Cornwell's birth father, William Oughtred, dated his lineage back to Northumbria, whence comes our fictional hero Uhtred (Alexander Dreymon, American Horror Story alum), a swaggering, insolent hero born Saxon, bred Dane, accepted nowhere. Through Uhtred the warrior we come to know Alfred's life and his descendants' effort to unite England. Uhtred is a Saxon nobleman's young boy when the Danes capture his homeland of Northumbria; Uhtred Sr. is killed by Dane Earl Ragnar and the boy is taken and raised happily by Ragnar (Peter Gantzler, below, with young Uhtred). Uhtred asks Ragnar why the Danes keep coming to Britain. Ragnar explains that Denmark is wet, harsh, and the ground is so flat and sandy you can't grow a fart. We are here to grow. If you want land and wealth, you have to take it.

As he nears maturity, Uhtred sees his Danish home upended by the murder of Ragnar's family, leaving him and Brida (Emily Cox), a Saxon girl also raised with Uhtred, on the run from Danes who blame him for the murders. The pair make their way to Ubba, a menacing Viking wild man (Norwegian Rune Temte, below) to find that Uhtred's rumored infamy had reached Ubba's ears, making him their mortal enemy. They stay on the run.

Uhtred and Brida head south to Wessex, the only kingdom that remains in Saxon hands. Uhtred wants to recoup his Northumbrian ancestral home and title from the invaders but as a youth he is, in his own words, arrogant and stupid, incapable of ingratiating himself with Alfred (the competent David Dawson, below). Alfred, however, sees a resource in him to learn the ways of the Danes -- they intend to use each other.

When Uhtred and Brida meet the soft-spoken but ruthless leader, we and they get our first glimpse of Alfred's power -- his use of the written word. ("When a man dies, if nothing is written, he is soon forgotten.") His inner sanctum (below) is filled top to bottom with handwritten scrolls describing his actions, findings, translations, and scholarship. (Later Guthrum, a Danish occupier, brandishes one of Alfred's scrolls: "This magic is words without sound -- voices without people; I am going to learn how to use this magic.") Alfred is driven by the order he finds in ancient scholarship, the church, and the law. Uhtred could care less; he thinks Alfred is a pious weakling. But by watching the relationship develop between the paganized Saxon action man and the devout, intellectual king until Uhtred becomes strategist and military leader, you gain the essence of the story.

Cornwell is described by peers as a brilliant writer of battles with "an unflinching approach to bloodshed" (Daily Mail), but domestic relations is not his thing. The TV series succeeds better than Cornwell's first two books in investing the saga with relationships that make you halfway care, while providing tension between Christian and pagan. Aelswith, Alfred's whiny Queen (Eliza Butterworth, below) never stops whispering to Alfred that Uhtred must die because of his heathen ways.

Uhtred has two lovers and a wife in the first season and his women make their mark. Awesome Brida is a brazen warrior and prickly fem; Charlie Murphy's Iseult (below) mesmerizes Uhtred and the camera with a quiet intensity that she also brings to Rebellion, a 4-parter about the Irish Easter Uprising in 1916 (also streaming on Netflix).

The BBC series is executive-produced by two familiars --Gareth Neame and Nigel Marchant of Downton Abbey. A third carry-over is composer John Lunn whose score for Kingdom is unimaginably different from DA; Faroese musician Eivor adds unearthly vocals that get one's pagan up. (She hales from the Danish Faroe Islands which have old folk traditions.)

Although Cornwell's novels and the series introduce King Alfred as the foil to the warrior's ambition to recover his birthright, it is Dreymon's handsome Uhtred whose life-force drives the action. We are due for a full-on treatment of Alfred because his achievements were so foundational to modern civics. Alfred created defense and tax systems, borough organization, representative rule, a legal code; his center of scholarship in Oxford became Oxford University. Many millennia and despotic kings later, his organizational achievements became touchstones during the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Victorian era and onward to the present. Perhaps Alfred's good governing will make it into the TV series if renewals are forthcoming, but for now one hopes that Uhtred gets his land back and hangs up his sword.

Note: the Scandinavian seafaring pirates were called Vikings but were referred to as Danes when living in England.

The above post was written by Lee Liberman, 

our greatly valued, monthly correspondent

August's Sunday Corner with Lee Liberman -- PEAKY BLINDERS 3: The Double Triple Cross

This not so under-the-radar cult series -- now available for streaming via Netflix -- is a bouquet to British screenwriter Steven Knight's heritage and a bite out of Britain's 20th century criminal past -- the gangs of Birmingham in the 1920's. Both of Knight's parents descend from Birmingham Peaky Blinders gang culture, a group notorious for tucking razor blades into their caps for cutting victims. The story of the Peakies resonates with our Godfather & Boardwalk Empire epics but is colored with its  iconic Brummy aesthetic; Birmingham was the clanging, banging industrial seat of Britain's metal works.

Literature from across the pond evolved from ancient stories of knights, chivalry, and wars of thrones; eras were defined by kings and queens. British drama has matured into tales of the aristocracy and politics; its long lines of family gangs & rivalries have simply not been written about.

In an interview with BBC History Magazine, Knight (above) contrasts the narrative of America by its settlers as a romance of the promised land; Europe was old and bad -- America the stuff of myth. The settling of the American West and the stories of laborers, cowboys and industrialization turned the mundane into our American mythology.

Knight's English version of the American gangster tale starts with hero Thomas Shelby (Cillian Murphy, in high strung but authoritative command of the Peaky universe) riding into his Brum slum (Birmingham) on a horse. It is the start of any American western and Knight used the reference on purpose, although Tommy Shelby's personal wild west derives from his gypsy ties to the land of his dead mother. (Knight uncovered the tidbit of Charlie Chaplin's birth on the Black Patch, Smethwick, near Birmingham, a gypsy camp that figures in Peaky Blinders.) From the stories passed down to Knight, the filmmaker wove tales and images together that stay imprinted on the viewer's mind as they did on his, such as that of a group of men huddled over a plain wooden table drinking beer out of jam jars, fogged in booze and smoke -- impeccably dressed bookies handling piles of money when no one else had any.

Luckily an ingenious story-teller has his arms around the Peaky Blinders. Knight wrote Dirty Pretty Things and Locke, among other tensely-plotted stories. (His reputation attracts the cream of English acting, all eager to fit their schedules around Knight's torrid filming schedule.) As the complex plotting goes forward, the question lurks whether the family can live down the past. Despite the new opulence, signs are everywhere that the bottom-feeding Shelby's have a long climb to fit into polite society -- their forward motion in Season 3 marks their lives with even more dour pessimism than in Seasons 1 & 2.

No surprise that young actor Finn Cole was gleeful in his enthusiasm about season 3. His character Michael, Aunt Polly Gray's long lost son, is aptly named to follow in Michael Corleone's path. He morphs from sunny young protege destined to benefit from legitimizing illegal businesses to wearing the tortured face of the portrait of Dorian Gray aging in the attic of Oscar Wilde's famous novel. Michael Gray turns steely cold, begging to pull the trigger on a Shelby enemy, a priest who had abused him in childhood (played by Paddy Considine, far left in picture at bottom.) We'll see in future if Michael's middle class rearing in an adoptive family will make his young adult life any less fraught than his older Shelby cousins whose youth in a Small Heath slum schooled them in ruthlessness. For now, Finn Cole is relishing every minute of Michael's roller coaster ride to hell (below, and at bottom, pictured next to his real life brother, Joe Cole, who plays brother John Shelby, second and third from right.)

Series 1 and 2 accomplish the Shelby conquest of the territories of Birmingham bookie mogul Billy Kimber and his London doppleganger, Darby Sabini. Nearly meeting his end at the hand of Sabini and other forces in Season 2, Tommy is saved by Winston Churchill who will expect payment in future. Season 3 opens with the favor being called in. High up government Brits want Tommy to assist a family of exiled White Russian nobility who are plotting against Bolsheviks in their former homeland. Below, the Russians promise Tommy recompense in jewels he thinks they will never deliver; he plans a double-cross.

After a fevered fan wait, season 3 begins with Tommy's marriage at his splendid home where we learn which of his lovers is the bride but more important, the Russian plot is launched in a classic wedding stramash. Tommy and his family have now converted their huge illegal gambling cash business into objects including the large estate for Tommy and stepped up life styles for family members. There's a religious wife for brother Arthur (most crazed by WWI trenches). Linda, the lovely Kate Phillips (Jane Seymour in Wolf Hall, see her 4th from right in picture at bottom), intends to separate Arthur from the family to pursue a righteous path in America. Sudanese born English actor Alexander Siddig (Game of Thrones) becomes Aunt Polly's (the spectacular Helen McGrory) portrait painter and love interest. He depicts her as a woman of 'style & substance' on canvas, but she fears that 'a woman like me' may be over-reaching.

Luscious Dutch talent Gaite Jansen, Russian Princess Tatiana (below), torments and teases Tommy, tricking him into episodes of obscene decadence and hidden agendas. He excuses his participation in her sex games as "work" --- he needs to find out where the Russians store their trove of precious jewels.

Tom Hardy, stepping in here as Tommy's gemologist, gives us the next iteration of the syrupy duplicitous Jewish crime boss, Alfie Solomons, a character so meaty you want to cut him with a knife and mop up the juice with a loaf of challah. Writer Knight has so many balls in the air that Hardy shouldn't steal every second he's on screen. But he does. (He's shown below and in photograph at bottom, second from left.)

Many actors are seeking the role of the next James Bond, but there is only one who would bring true genius to the part -- the brilliant Tom Hardy.

Season 3 ends with Tommy dividing his behemoth take from the Russian deal among family, while simultaneously putting them in grave danger -- a depressing betrayal and cliffhanger to be resolved by Season 4. The Peaky's do not offer an appetizing ride; Knight pushes the viewer's buttons repeatedly. But intense, clever plotting, idiosyncratic, memorable characters, terrific acting, and the untidy view of the underbelly of Merry old England combine to makes addicts of its die-hard fans. Seasons 4 and 5 have been commissioned, there's a hint Brad Pitt may step in, and Knight hopes to take the Shelby gang to the start of World War II, sorting out if, how, or whether they are able to merge their crude origins with their arrival in polite society.

The above post is written by our monthly

correspondent, Lee Liberman.

Sunday Corner with Lee Liberman: Foyle's War -- our war from across the pond

You may have watched some of this British series (2002-2015) on PBS filled with absorbing stories and British acting elite. But a serial watch on Netflix of all 28 feature-length episodes is better. Taken as a whole it feels like 3-D immersion into World War II years (later of the post-war and early Cold War) in bucolic Hastings by the sea, while combat rages in Europe.

Every chapter of FOYLE's WAR has an intriguing mystery, several layered story-lines, believable conversation, and memorable imagery. At end you've grown completely fond of the exacting, self-effacing Chief Inspector Christopher Foyle (accomplished actor Michael Kitchen), his plucky, quirky, entrepreneurial assistant Sam (Samantha) Stewart (Honeysuckle Weeks), and their mate, Sergeant Paul Milner, home from defeat at Trondheim missing half a leg, to help Foyle solve crimes (Anthony Howell).

Foyle has an RAF pilot son, Andrew, played by charming Julian Ovenden, below, left (Lady Mary Crawley's suitor, Charles Blake, in Downton Abbey). Ovenden left the scene before Andrew and Sam had progressed beyond 'will they, won't they', but several RAF-related stories unfold first. In one, a pilot who loves Andrew conceals his homosexuality and pays with his life; in another, an airforce officer (Roger Allam) resorts to crime to cover up sexual abuse of a young subordinate. But Andrew doesn't leave the scene before we share his flying experiences testing radar technology and experiencing "battle fatigue."

Our affection for the main characters is maintained by side-trips into their private lives and vicarious participation with Foyle in the moral choices he must make in each case -- he is the foil of wrong-doing, the moral center, our better selves. There's satisfaction also in the body of work as a whole -- the circumstances of war are so deeply, accurately embedded in the story lines that one absorbs history by osmosis, aided by many guest stars such as below (l to r) a youthful Rosamund Pike, David Tennant, and Emily Blunt from early episodes.

The stories begin in 1940 with pro-fascist, anti-Semitic views rife in the British upper classes and general hostility brewing as refugees pour into England to escape the Nazi's. The authorities are detaining enemy aliens and the public is griping about foreigners. In tracking down the killer of 'the German Woman', Foyle discovers that his superior (Edward Fox) had previously pulled strings enabling his judge colleague's German wife to avoid internment as an enemy alien. Meanwhile, a renown Jewish musician is locked up for shamefully trivial reasons.

Another episode is led by Charles Dance (Game of Thrones) as Guy Spencer, self-styled British patriot, who whips public opinion and schmoozes pro-Nazi political elites. Spencer is relishing his glorious future under the Nazi's; Foyle needs to take him down without violating his right to free speech -- fortunately there's treason.

And onward, episode by episode, to the abuse of conscientious objectors (and anyone with a whif of socialist leanings), food shortages and other privations. Land girls tend the fields and kids collect trash (a chop bone yields enough glycerine to make cordite for two cartridges). Random bombs fall on Hastings and secret installations are multiplying. One hides the building of coffins; another conceals anthrax experiments. A Hastings murder leads Foyle to the secret SOE -- Special Operations Executive, MI5's branch of 'secret ops and dirty tricks' and (below) agent Hilda Pierce (Ellie Haddington), a spinster of complexity.

We meet English tycoon, Sir Reginald Walker, doing illegal business with the Germans. Sir Reginald's son Simon has built himself a Nazi shrine in the basement of the family estate where he meditates on German greatness. Below, Laurence Fox (nephew of Edward Fox, episode 1) has a juicier part in Simon than ever he did as the sidekick of Inspector Lewis.

After Pearl Harbor, American troop arrivals upset Hastings. A landowner has his acreage paved over for an American air base. The Yanks are paid more and they eat more. Racism against black soldiers creates incidents and Yanks impregnate local girls. One episode features Charlotte Riley as a young mother dying to emigrate to America with her baby's black father and maliciously blocked by red tape and violence.

At last, VE day, but not all flags and balloons; folks are exhausted, poor, and lives have to be rebooted. Now come the post-war stories. One is the repatriation of prisoners of war, except that our wartime ally Stalin has revenge in mind. Returning Russian POW's who had fought with the Germans are massacred fresh off the Ship Almanzora in Odessa -- a famously open secret. Foyle, assigned to recover a Russian escapee, finds that the Russians do not want to leave. And he doesn't want to see them murdered off the boat in Russia either.

Special mention goes to Andrew Scott (below, who also plays Moriarty in Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock), for his moving portrayal of a soldier who as a boy saw his aristocrat father murder his mother. Aiming to des-troy his father's reputation, he faces hanging, refusing to defend himself against false charges. (Hints are that Foyle himself may be his real father.)

The last season finds Foyle induced into working for MI5 in London where the mood and color of espionage is gray. I agree with creator Anthony Horowitz who says this may be some of his best work especially 'Elise', the very powerful final episode, in which MI5 contributed to the deaths of many agents dropped into France. The testing of the atomic bomb in New Mexico is recreated and Cold War engaged, and Sam gets a life of her own. Now the question is will prolific mystery maker Anthony Horowitz and his endearing policeman Christopher Foyle be coaxed back for more? Will Foyle's War ever be recognized here for the exceptional work it is?

Anthony Horowitz (shown above, right, with Prince Charles) is also the author/adapter of Agatha Christie's Poirot in the 1990's and early Midsomer Murders; he was commissioned by the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle to pen Sherlock Holmes novels (The House of Silk and Moriarty) and to add to the Ian Fleming list of Bond novels with Trigger Mortis. He has many screenplays to his credit and has made himself a national treasure with all, as is now Michael Kitchen's Christopher Foyle, himself.

Click HERE for Anthony Horowitz's excellent discussion of the making of the last series, which I think can be taken to mean that he's got more Foyle in him before he quits.

The above post is written by TrustMovies' 

monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman