ITVs 'Midwinter of the Spirit' Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins

[mollie123]

just a heads up that this 3 part drama commissioned by Encore is to be shown on ITV on 23rd September. It has me worried as it is described a 'contemporary and edgy'
it also has the following pedigree:
Midwinter of the Spirit will be directed by Richard Clark (Doctor Who, Whitechapel), produced by Phil Collinson (Doctor Who, Coronation Street, Sea of Souls) and executive produced by Creative Director, ITV Studios in Manchester Kieran Roberts (The Trials of Jimmy Rose, Blue Murder, Coronation Street.
I have loved the books but as I live in Herefordshire/Welsh border which is the location for the books I am a bit uneasy that the casting will not reflect that area of England.

this has had more of an effect on me than I realised.

I woke up last night, wasn't thinking about anything in particular, then I suddenly saw - in my mind's eye - the figure darting across the church and then I heard "Scritch scratch".

Surprised myself

I only watched Episode 3 and I hated it! WTF was all that crap about Rowenna being Denzil's daughter? (And Denzil just looked like Frank out of Shameless so not that scary). None of the plot strands seemed to hang together very well either.

Most annoying adaptation since the total bollocks they made of Quite Ugly One Morning.

bits were good but overall very disjointed (watched ep 3 alone in the house except for dog)
missed lots of Anna m-m dialogue as she mumbled and seems to always be looking away from the camera
the actors :
David Threlfall - could hear every wood and he was as I imagined the
character
Jane - good as an hysterical/stroppy teenager
Lol - wooden and again mumbled his words
the book was v good - this was trying to capture the atmosphere and IMO failed

I didn't think the last episode was good

but Solid, the "crap" about Rowenna being Denzil's daughter confused me, why is it crap? It makes perfect sense in the context of the two previous episodes....

I did think this episode was badly done, which is a shame considering they started so well.

I can understand why they had to compress a lot to fit it all into 3 episodes, and to pack in all the back story at the same time, but I felt it lost something in the simplification - the chilly thing about the book is the inexplicable force of the evil, whereas this felt 'explained' by Rowenna being Denzil's daughter, Jane feeling angry about her dad's death, etc.

Shame they couldn't have made it four or five parts, and run it before Christmas - love a good Xmas ghost story!

Glad it wasn't just me who could hardly hear Anna M-M half the time. Strange the way her "northern" accent returned for the last scene! Found her crying and whimpering very irritating too.

And who was the rather ordinary young actor with the pudding face playing Jack the boy bishop? Will Attenborough? oh, right........

She wasn't his daughter in the book. He was barely relevant to the main plot of the book. That was one of the things that irritated me about the TV version, this lovely, rich, complex plot condensed into a join-the-dots cliche fest.

On planner

Started watching 1st one

Haven't read any comments as Didnt want to know the plot

I really liked this book, but didn't enjoy this adaptation at all. The dark, overbearing atmosphere of the book was completely missing. And the thing about Rowenna being Denzil's long lost daughter was ridiculous. It didn't surprise me to see people involved with Coronation Street were also involved in this, it did come across as a soap with added jump scares.

Is Midwinter of the Spirit repeated in the week? We somehow missed watching the last one