To be wondering when The Village will lighten up a bit?

[Squarepebbles]

[Pandemoniaa]

I've still got mixed feelings. Right now it's all very brown and muddy with rather too many "significant" but unexpressed feelings lurking around under the brown and muddy surface. I also have a nasty suspicion that ends may not be tied up satisfactorily. The burnt Lord of the Manor, for example.

I'm prepared to give it a few more weeks. But if it carries on in this vein then yes, the Spanish Flu may be a blessing.

[ppeatfruit]

I did enjoy Call The Midwife though. That was a refreshing change for the Beeb to have a programme without a trailer depicting violence and sex as a selling point.

Though of course it had both without any glamour.

[PenelopePortrait]

trice Posh misery lit. Spot on.

It's like trying to plough through a classic novel but not understanding a word.

Only one thing kept me watching until the end sat night - John Simm. However, it's not enough so I won't be watching next week.

I'll be very surprised if this makes the next series let alone the 42 episodes planned. Such a shame because it could be really good and watchable.

[Cathycat]

I read an article about it being written from an old man's retelling of his life, while he was in the final years of his life. His son wrote down the memories. I think it is very harsh but fascinating. I like the acting and the scenery is wonderful. I am not that old but I remember going weekly to have a bath at our public baths because the house where I was staying at the time only had a tin bath and this was much easier. So the scenes with the bathing really do ring a bell! I really like it.

[ShowOfHands]

I'm enjoying it but not because it has anything I'd usually look for in Sunday night entertainment.

My family going back as far as I can trace (1600s) lived in a Derbyshire village though it was a mining village, not a farming village. Both my great grandma (born in the 1890s) and my grandma (still with us, nearly 90) describe life growing up and my dad tells me of things his great grandparents described and it's scarily accurate.

My grandma's dad was an abusive alcoholic, his dad was an abusive alcoholic. My great, great grandma was in and out of the workhouse with her children because her nasty scrote of a husband was in and out of prison due to his debts. He finally upped and left her with 6 children, she took a job in t'big 'ouse to make ends meet and fell in love with the son of the owners. He was disowned and they lived together as man and wife though obviously never marrying (he took her name actually). There are photos of them and their shoes are bits of leather, full of holes, crudely stitched and bound. My great, great grandma was always described as 'poor but proud'. My great grandma's husband was killed in the pit and they weasled out of paying her a pension, leaving her with a severely disabled child and penniless. The community rallied round and for 35 years she paid not a penny to a shopkeeper or tradesman. There are countless tales of suicides, poverty, probable murder, affairs and bleak, nasty, endless drudgery.

They all remember (including my dad) being caned and beaten at school. My dad had the school pet drowned in front of him to teach him a lesson and was beaten and humiliated by a school teacher on a few occasions. In the 1960s, the local children's home took in a black, recently orphaned child from down south and the local families petitioned, going as far as making banners and marching through town, because they didn't want any 'coloured folks' in their village. My Dad said he was about 10 and thoroughly ashamed.

Life was bleak, unimaginably so. My grandma watched it last week and said, give it a few years in screen time and they should have broken, scarred, mentally damaged young men sitting in the village street wailing and begging because they survived the war but have nothing to live for and have returned to a community which hasn't moved on for hundreds of years and isn't equipped to deal with them. She says it's spot on so far.

[MissTFied]

I love it! I like it that the writing is so sparse and it makes the viewer think. It's not easy going, you have to invest your time in it. The writer wanted it to be like American long-running shows like The Wire.

[Owllady]

that's a really interesting post showofhands, thank you

[Squarepebbles]

That is interesting Show.

[TiredMule]

I love it too! Watched both episodes on iplayer last night and would happily have watched more!

[Squarepebbles]

I'm expecting a shed load of light hearted frivolity when living conditions get better as payback then.

What decade would that be 50s/ 60s?

[mayaswell]

I've got a feeling the War might feature quite strongly, so no I don't think it's going to get any sunnier. My family were farmers in the North and life was pretty unrelentingly grim.
Personally I like it, the only bit I found a bit difficult was the sudden appearance of a fat Jersey cow bought with a tin of sixpences, did he just pop down the cow shop?

[VenusStarr]

That's an interesting story showofhands

One thing irritates me, young Bert has deep brown eyes, old Bert has light blue. Poor continuity.

I do agree the acting is good, I just felt a bit lost last night and couldn't really follow the story, felt like we'd missed a week.

[Squarepebbles]

And Bert took the piece of paper out if the satchel with his right hand.

[zamantha]

Browns and beige - yes, filming is murky - as are the Scandi-drama's ( so fashionable at moment) blue/grey /black.

I do like nostalgia/romantic period dramas as we have been fed for so many years - BBC's trademark - but I think it is very brave to go for earthy reality as up- thread we are told and I think we could develop an appetite for such work. Do we need a bit of light relief to get us used to it or has Moffat been uncompromising and asked us to change what we expect from period dramas?

I did find it gritty and felt a bit shocked/depressed by it but thought it was beautifully shot and had an emotional integrity.

[ChairmanWow]

One thing irritates me, young Bert has deep brown eyes, old Bert has light blue. Poor continuity. . Yes, me too. A pair of contacts would have sorted that out.

Interesting to read some of the accounts above. Maybe it is a fairly accurate depiction of the time, but I have to admit that though I usually love a bit of posh misery lit this was too relentless for even me. I'll be recording and watching alone next week as DH won't watch another. It's on its last chance for me - anything happens to that baby and I'm out. We've got a newborn in the house and I'm far too hormonal and sentimental for baby death on t'telly.

[Ionasky]

Agree with ShowofHands - another vote for liking it - yes it's not at all upbeat but downton etc. is more soap than properly observed period drama. A brief trawl through most people's family histories shows how accurate this is (certainly mine and dh's). My gran likes to opine about how much 'softer' we all are today.

[Owllady]

mayaswell, I wonder whether the farm will get bought under compulsory purchase to make way for mining, as a lot were in that area?

[Miffytastic]

I watched the first half of episdode one before losing interest due to the misery and also I get really annoyed by the ye-olde-days-filtering - a bit like the ones that are used in Lord of the Rings IYKWIM - why do they have to do it?

[Oblomov]

Am also finding it very miserable. And it has many parts left. It is a 6 part'er. So can't see it getting any more jolly, can you?

[NuhichNuhaymuh]

I like it too, but a lot of people like to watch nice stuff, something to make them feel warm inside style, and The Village isn't warm and nice so there's going to be a lot of people that don't like it.

[Oblomov]

Dh has just said:" I keep waiting for something to happen, but so far it actually hasn't."
Which is a fair point. Bugger all has actually happened yet. The writers are really dragging it out into a six part episodes, aren't they?

[Allfurcoatandnoknickers]

Just watched the second village episode. It was filmed in and around Edale. It really is very bleak and beautiful and unspoilt.
I find it very gripping drama, and as showofhands says, life was pretty tough then.

[Onlyconnect]

I don't mind the misery, I just don't think it's very good. It doesnt engage me fully. Don't know why, I normally love drama. One thing that puzzled me was why the John Simm character was given the beer at the big house.

[Rosebelle]

It's not that accurate!!!!!!

The teacher woman (who IS she!?! The one who stalks around the Big House, the Baths and the Farm and the School and the Pub....)

..where was I. Ah yes. Last night she charged into the local pub to remonstrate with the landlord for selling alcohol to the John Simms. There is no way that firstly a) a lady would have gone in there, b) the landlord would have been so instantly rude to her and c) ALL the men in there carried on drinking, nobody removed their caps, there was no gasps that a higher-ranking female had stepped inside. It would have made at least some if not most, very uncomfortable even if they were tough working class nuts.

Also. The unlikelyhood that Joe would have shagged Caro last week like that. He would have also been fearful of the class divide, even if she wasn't.

Also. Maxine Peake has a job in the heart of the women's community (bath house landlady) but she would not send for a MW or the doctor when the baby arrived. She would not have been lacking in women friends to help and no matter how evil John Simms would not have argued with that as childbirth was women's work back then.

Obviously John Simm and the Big House Middletons are family, John is the black sheep of the family, I think he must be a son/brother who has been cast out due to his alcoholic problems.

But overall, why so little dialogue?! Is it trying to be trendy? Less "Catherine Cookson"? It is just irritating, the number of meaningful glances going on and wooden silences when quite obviously, words would be spoken.

All those saying that that's how things were in those days, I don't doubt that's true, having heard my own grandmother's stories, however there was also a lot of fun, community spirit, people helping (esp in a small community). none of which has been illustrated so far.

[Solopower1]

Showofhands I thought it was very authentic too - and saw the set at Hayfield before the series started. The intriguing thing about it was how well it fitted in - you could really imagine yourself plonked down outside the grocer's shop or the pub a hundred years ago.

I love things like this that get the atmosphere right - but there were some clangers. Like Maxine Peake standing outside at the gate in the pouring rain and completely dry! Not even a stray wet hair when she went into the house.

Life was very hard then. Maybe not quite as hard though.