Another ITV period drama hits our screen, Dark Angel starring Joanna Froggatt who continues her trawl through different periods from the cobbles of weatherfield, to the moors of Saddleworth, to the surrounds of Downton we now find our quantum leap actress in the 1870s, where she is ensconced in the comfortable yet hand blisteringly hard work of the fishing village- so far so authentic.
What then followed was a plot which for a while felt like my sky+ box was on fast forward as in the opening 30 minutes she had had and lost 4 children, 2 husbands and made merry with so many menfolk she probably had Raleigh tattooed on her thigh! It was fed to us at such breakneck speed it was hard to buy into the character before us. In one notable scene she was introduced to a soldier in hospital within 3 seconds we then saw her standing at the alter, in anyone's experience that was courtship at warp factor.
All along she was dropping children like Nissan make Quasqai cars. She was more furtile than an Indian tea plantation, and talking of tea this was to be her weapon of choice when it came to dispatching her children, husbands and toward the end her mother. Never will the phrase "how about a nice cup of tea" illicit such shouts of "just say no" from the audience.
The scenes of the poor house and the relentless hardship were well executed, excuse the pun and Alun Armstrong was as ever brilliant as the Paternal and caring father of our Dark Angel.
The problem is that the plot was served at a breakneck speed and the menace was diluted because the sheer amount of casualties almost became like a dark comic horror, its true the story is an intriguing and fascinating one but left me feeling I had merely speed read what is a far more in depth tale.
Served up in a meaty 90 minutes Dark Angel left us wanting to know more and how our arsenic killer meets her grizzly end, although we do know as it was the first scene we saw as the gallows were readied for a hanging.
It looked great,the settings visceral and the story although gripping did leave me feeling it was a little underwhelming and I was given little reward for sitting through an hour and a half of this mawkish murderess melange.
ITV has some pedigree with period drama but this serving was all a bit of a dogs dinner!