Christmas 2014: BBC One cleared three evenings for Steve Pemberton’s tart, faithful trimming of Benson’s Tilling chronicles. The budget is modest, the running time 180 minutes, yet every frame is saturated with 1930 colour, from Lucia’s beaded cardigans to Mapp’s cloche hats. Pemberton keeps the novels’ lethal politeness intact, relocating the guru humbug from Queen Lucia to episode two, where Felicity Montagu’s Diva bankrolls a fraudulent Indian mystic and Anna Chancellor’s Lucia paints her way out of scandal.
Miranda Richardson makes Elizabeth Mapp a study in twitching resentment, eyes narrowing as Lucia’s Italian phrases float across the garden wall. The camera lingers on her jawline the way thrillers track a loaded gun. Chancellor answers with airy certainty, letting the mask slip only when flu strands her upstairs during the Contessa’s visit. Around them, Steve Pemberton fusses as Georgie, Mark Gatiss rumbles through Major Benjy’s whisky haze, and Gemma Whelan’s Irene sketches the female form with unabashed hunger.
Shot entirely in Rye during the summer of 2014, the cobbled lanes and salt-stained skies do half the acting. Overnight ratings slid from 4.87 million on 29 December to 2.24 million on New Year’s Eve, but critics pounced like Mapp on a dropped syllable: The Guardian printed three encomiums in a week, while Ellen E. Jones predicted fresh Benson sales and demanded a second run. No order followed; the series stands as a single, perfectly iced cake, best consumed before the calendar turns.
Production Details
.mw-parser-output .plainlist ol / 1 Season / 3 Episodes / 2014
Created by: Steve Pemberton
Writer(s): Steve Pemberton
Producer(s): Susie Liggat
Main Cast
**[Cast
Anna Chancellor](/tag/cast-anna-chancellor)** as Emmeline 'Lucia' Lucas
Steve Pemberton as Georgie Pillson
Miranda Richardson as Elizabeth Mapp
Mark Gatiss as Major Benjy
Felicity Montagu as Godiva 'Diva' Plaistow
Gemma Whelan as Irene Coles
Paul Ritter as Reverend Kenneth Bartlett
Poppy Miller as Evie Bartlett
Nick Woodeson as Mr Wyse
Pippa Haywood as Mrs Wyse
Katy Brand as Hermione 'Hermy' Pillson
Joanna Scanlan as Ursula 'Ursy' Pillson
