Bleak House

Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock in Bleak House

If the film is often a novella, the TV mini-series is often the full-fat 600-pager, with Charles Dickens right up at the top of the list when it comes to cliffhanger endings to the week’s proceedings – the stories were often written for serialisation, Bleak House having appeared in 20 weekly editions of 32 pages plus illustrations. The BBC have something of a lock on Dickens, but their productions can be a bit dusty, more focused on the clothes than the action. But not this Bleak House. This 2005 outing is their best Dickens since 1994’s Martin Chuzzlewit and has the edge on its previous Bleak House, made in 1985 and starring Diana … Read more

Straightheads aka Closure

Gillian Anderson and Danny Dyer in Straightheads

Yet another Danny Dyer movie in which he plays a flaky spliffer. And another, like Outlaw, in which he’s involved in vigilantism of a particularly unpleasant sort. This one, though, co-stars Gillian Anderson as the posh totty Dyer ends up bedding after installing CCTV equipment at her pad. And then, after she’s invited him out to a party at a swish country house, the pair are set upon on the drive back to town. He is horribly beaten up, she is brutally raped. But hang on – Danny Dyer? Gillian Anderson? No, it doesn’t seem right somehow but Anderson has a habit of turning up in some odd corners. And in Straightheads actually work … Read more