Cranford (TV series)

The teleplay by Heidi Thomas was adapted from three novellas by Elizabeth Gaskell published between 1849 and 1858: Cranford, My Lady Ludlow and Mr Harrison's Confessions.

[1] Set in the early 1840s in the fictional village of Cranford in the county of Cheshire in North West England, the story focuses primarily on the town's single and widowed middle class female inhabitants who are comfortable with their traditional way of life and place great store in propriety and maintaining an appearance of gentility.

Among them are the spinster Jenkyns sisters, Matty and Deborah; their houseguest from Manchester, Mary Smith; Octavia Pole, the town's leading gossip; the Tomkinson sisters, Augusta and Caroline; Mrs Forrester, who treats her beloved cow Bessie as she would a daughter; Mrs Rose, the housekeeper for Dr Harrison; Jessie Brown, who rejects Major Gordon's marriage proposal twice despite her feelings for him; Laurentia Galindo, a milliner who strongly believes men and women are on equal footing; the Honourable Mrs Jamieson, a snob who dresses her dog in ensembles to match her own; Sophy Hutton, the vicar's eldest daughter and surrogate mother to her three younger siblings, who is courted by Dr Harrison; and the aristocratic Lady Ludlow, who lives in splendour at Hanbury Court and perceives change as a peril to the natural order of things.

The principal male characters are new arrival Dr Frank Harrison, who is smitten with Sophy but unwittingly becomes the romantic target of both Mrs Rose and Caroline Tomkinson, who frequently feigns illness to hold his attention; Dr Morgan, an old-fashioned practitioner who finds himself challenged by the modern ideas of his young partner; Captain Brown, a military man whose common sense earns him a place of authority among the women; Edmund Carter, Lady Ludlow's land agent, a reformer who strongly advocates free education for the working class; Harry Gregson, the ambitious ten-year-old son of an impoverished poacher, who as Mr. Carter's protégé learns to read and write; farmer Thomas Holbrook, Matty Jenkyns' one-time suitor, who was considered unsuitable by her family but is anxious to renew his relationship with her; Reverend Hutton, a widower with four children whose religious conviction is sometimes at odds with his instincts as a father; and Sir Charles Maulver, the local magistrate and director of the railway company.

Listed in alphabetical order: Series One Episode One: June 1842 New to Cranford are Captain Brown and his two daughters, who move in across from the Jenkyns sisters, Deborah and Matty.

Instead of following the usual custom of amputating the injured limb, Dr Harrison delays immediate action in order to perform a relatively new and risky surgery to save the arm.

Edmund Carter, estate manager for Lady Ludlow, takes an interest in young Harry Gregson, the bright son of a poor local family and offers him both work and an education.

When a valuable piece of historic lace belonging to Mrs. Forrester is swallowed by a cat, she and Octavia Pole discover a novel new use for a Wellington boot.

Episode Two: August 1842 Major Gordon proposes to Jessie Brown, for the second time, before his regiment is to be sent to India, but she refuses him because she believes she cannot leave her father by himself.

Upon returning from Lady Ludlow's annual garden party, she complains of a terrible headache and, moments later, collapses in her bedroom and dies later that night.

Episode Five: May 1843 The ladies of Cranford learn about Miss Matty's financial distress and secretly contribute to her welfare, with the sudden influx of cash explained as being due to the discovery of an error in the bank's bookkeeping.

£1,000 is to be used for his formal education at Shrewsbury School and the remainder to redeem the mortgage on Lady Ludlow's estate, but eventually to revert to Harry with interest.

Locations used included Surrey, Hambleden, Windsor, Radnage, Leighton Buzzard, Berkhamsted, Wycombe, Syon House in Brentford, London and Isleworth in Middlesex and Oxford.

"[5] James Walton of The Daily Telegraph observed, "Heidi Thomas’s script subtly brought out a more hidden element of Cranford life: that these people are simultaneously proud and ashamed of their provincial status.

Judi Dench, Imelda Staunton, Julia McKenzie, Deborah Findlay and Barbara Flynn reprised their roles, with Jonathan Pryce, Celia Imrie, Lesley Sharp, Nicholas Le Prevost, Jodie Whittaker, Tom Hiddleston, Michelle Dockery, Matthew McNulty, Rory Kinnear and Tim Curry joining the cast.

The new stories, which were written by Heidi Thomas and directed by Simon Curtis, took place in August 1844, a year after the wedding of Sophy Hutton and Dr Harrison.