Helen McCrory is Stunning as Mary Freeman
by Ian Jones | January 24, 2001 | OfftheTelly
This time last year BBC2 were in the middle of screening their much-hyped adaptation of Gormenghast. It ended up falling way short of expectation. The supposedly breathtaking special effects just looked ludicrous on the small screen, while too many dreadful celebrities turned up to mutter one sentence before dying. It was an attempt by the Beeb at filming a supposedly unfilmable text just for the sake of it. One year on and we’re almost half way through the transmission of another supposedly unfilmable book on BBC2, but this time the results are blissfully different.
In a Land of Plenty is already one of the best pieces of drama on British television ever. It shares its refreshingly simple premise with another acclaimed BBC series, Our Friends in the North: following the fortunes of a group of characters over time. However this is not an original drama but an inspired treatment of a novel by Tim Pears, and focuses on a family rather than a group of friends.