Good books, bad films

Atonement, BBC, Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach, The Child in Time

By TV adaptations

Film producers cannot resist Ian McEwan’s novels. This week an adaptation of his 2014 novel The Children Act was released in cinemas, starring Emma Thompson as the high court judge Fiona Maye, who makes impossible decisions about family disputes while...

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First look at BBC2’s Death and Nightingales

BBC, BBC2, Death and Nightingales, Eugene McCabe

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Jamie Dornan gets to wear a beard and a hat in his latest role in the upcoming BBC2 drama, Death and Nightingales. Set in Fermanagh in the 1880s and based on Eugene McCabe’s 1992 novel, it also gave Dornan the opportunity to work once again in his native...

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Autumn’s top 20 dramas

ITV, Thackeray, Vanity Fair

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2. Vanity Fair Gwyneth Hughes “Vanity Fair is a big, lavish, funny costume drama about the rollercoaster of people’s lives going right and going wrong, with William Makepeace Thackeray [played by Michael Palin, who starred in Hughes’s 2014 BBC1 drama...

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L-M Miranda, J. McAvoy, R. Wilson Cast in BBC’s ‘His Dark Materials’

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Lin-Manuel Miranda, James McAvoy and Ruth Wilson have all been cast in the BBC’s upcoming series “His Dark Materials,” based on the bestselling fantasy novels by British author Philip Pullman. Oscar-winner Tom Hooper (“The King’s Speech”) will direct...

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