The Casual Vacancy...anyone watching?

[Selks]

If so, thoughts so far?

I couldn't get on with the book but I'm enjoying this so far...a cast of fallible and largely unpleasant characters; plot pleasantly complex(ish), good filming - bucolic pretty England with a claustrophobic feel....

Will be interested to see how it develops.

Good news emotion!

grammar, I wondered about that. Haven't they missed out a character who is involved (unwillingly) with the social worker who has just moved to the village? I wondered if they had decided there were just too many characters and so edited it a bit.

Does anyone know if JKR was involved with the adaptation?

I read the book last year & found it a good read, albeit grim especially the ending.
I gave up halfway through the TV program last night-too much nastiness & swearing, sort of unremitting (at least in the book you get a slow intro by chapters)

Yes! Ship , Gavin...I feel the complexity may have suffered a bit from the BBC production, I'll still be following it. Julia McKenzie is just perfect as Shirley...what a witch!

I thought the casting was excellent, although I recall that the shop owner (Howard-Michael Gambon) was described as corpulent in the book & a good deal made of it,too-that isn't the case in the tv version.
Yes Julia McKenzie is perfect- you could feel her glee when she told the Doctor of Barry's death, she was just itching to be the first with the news.

Yes, Gavin, he was beautifully awful from memory and would have been the subject of any thread on the 'he's just not that into you' relationships board.

Right, I gave it another go and watched to the end. Thought it warmed up a little - will watch next week.

Read and liked the book. JKR doesn't craft beautiful prose, but she tells a rattling good yarn.

Enjoyed the first episode, though I agree its the pace is a little rushed.

One of the characters y'all are making cats bum mouths about will surprise you.

Youreallabob - should I give it another go do you think?

Now I am going to have to finish the book before watching any more.

My thoughts as a (very recently former) parish councillor.

Lols at the notion of a parish council having its own building. HA! PCs are run on a flipping shoe string.

LOLS at the notion of the need for an election if someone carks it. Our PC has notionally 15 members but very rarely more than 11-12 people on it so never any need for an election or any kind of back stabbing or electioneering. If you can breathe and don't have too much of a criminal record, you're welcome to join the madness.

LOLS a at PC meeting without a large table to display all the tabled information, take notes and display the massive maps sent out by greedy large scale developers on a monthly basis.

LOLS at a PC wanting to dispose of a massive council asset without extensive consultation. Additionally PC are not allowed to make money, so would probably be actively precluded from selling anything that would make them a mint.

In short, 3/10 for accuracy. DH and I thought it was more like Hot Fuzz than anything.

It got better after he died.

I think I might have liked one or two of the characters when I read the book, but they all came across as bleeding awful on screen.

Hi duchesse.

You forgot the AOB bit - highly irregular to bring up new business which wasn't on the agenda. Dread to think what their standing orders look like.
They also don't have a Clerk which is a major error.

Incidentally, our parish council has our own Community Hall though I agree we're oin a minority.

Good point Shadow. The lack of a decent Clerk is probably why they had an inappropriate AOB.

They also wouldn't have been inquorate with the loss of one member - even one of my Parishes which only has five Councillors isn't inquorate with four! There would have been no hurry to advertise the vacancy (leaving it till after the funeral is good practise!) and then it's for the parishioners to demand an election not for the PC. But I'm going into far too much detail!

We have a parish council building. Has a kitchen and everything

Madeye

I absolutely loved the book but was a while ago now so can't remember the ending. Think I enjoyed it as it seemed a big like the goings on in our village, we have a badly behaved set of PC tons of snobby people, a whole host of greedy developers and a community of travellers - all who bitch about each other (usually anonymously) on the village online forum. Was really excited to watch the first episode but was a little disappointed as felt a bit disjointed - I think you need the full backstory of each character to get into the story and you only really get that from the book

Have not read the book and watched the first episode tonight. DH and I both enjoyed it as it felt original while "using" lots of cliches, a bit of a bad fairytale feel about it. JKR is definitely involved,co-producer possibly, but it's all been done with her agreement afaik from RT

Duchesse - YES! I was just thinking Hot Fuzz.

I enjoyed the book. I agree that lots of the characters are cliched, but JK Rowling's such a good storyteller that I didn't mind too much. I missed the TV show on Sunday though, so am planning to catch up tonight

wotched the hole thing and there weren't no wizards in it just a lode of boring stuff about a council!

lol Sapeke

Sapeke

'No real life Asian person would be like that even in a village'

Because you know how Asian person in the world is Funnyperson?