It's 1942 Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Otto Frank (Iain Glen) brings his wife Edith (Tamsin Greig), his daughters Margot (Felicity Jones), and Anne (Ellie Kendrick) to hide in a secret annex above his food and spice warehouse. They must keep quiet during the work day. Only the office staff Miep Gies (Kate Ashfield), Bep Voskuijl (Mariah Gale), Mr Kugler (Tim Dantay), and Mr Kleiman (Roger Frost) know the secret. The Franks are joined by Hermann Van Daan (Ron Cook), his brash wife Petronella (Lesley Sharp), and their son Peter (Geoff Breton). The final addition is dentist Albert Dussel (Nicholas Farrell) who becomes Anne's roommate. In the confined space, the personal conflicts mount. The Allies are closing in and freedom is almost at hand.This is like the Titanic. The sinking is inevitable but the story is still so compelling. Anne's modern humanity is undeniable. The performances are pitch perfect. Each character is well-defined and engaging. Ellie Kendrick is terrific in the lead. The mini-series ends with their capture. It makes no speculation about their informer. Their tragic ends are spelled out in text. I guess their horrific endings are subject for another time.

The Diary of Anne Frank (2009) tells about the experiences of Anne Frank and seven other people, who had to go hiding.It was all because they were Jews and Adolf Hitler was a psychopath.He and his Nazi regime.The story is told in five half-hour episodes.Ellie Kendrick was a very good pick to play Anne Frank.Geoff Berton is great as Peter Van Daan (Pels).Felicity Jones is marvelous as Margot Frank, who would have turned 85 a week ago.Iain Glen is terrific as Otto Frank.Tamsin Greig is great as Edith Frank.Nicholas Farrell is excellent as Mr Dussel (Fritz Pfeffer).Lesley Sharp and Ron Cook do great work as Petronella and Hermann Van Daan.Tim Dantay is brilliant as Mr Kugler.And so is Roger Frost as Mr Kleiman.Mariah Gale is wonderful as Bep Voskuijl.Kate Ashfield is superb as Miep Gies, their lovely helper.This Good Samaritan sadly lost her life at 100 on January last year.This gives a very realistic picture of the events.It's horrible to watch when the Gestapo arrives.You cry when Anne is shaking, unable to tie her shoes, and Dussel helps her.The relationship between Anne and Peter is beautifully portrayed.And the words of the actual diary sound very good.I read the diary about eight years ago, and it is one of the best things I have ever read.Right now I'm reading Carol Ann Lee's Anne Frank 1929-1945.If they would have left Anne to go on with her life, she could be a famous writer now.But her fate, her Jewish fate was to die at age 15.

Sixty-three years after the death of Anne Frank, this drama presents the story of her years in hiding in five half-hour episodes, which focus in depth on the events within the annex above her father's factory.Newcomer Ellie Kendrick plays Anne as a fiery teenager, struggling with inner conflicts and her emerging sexual feelings. This couldn't be presented as clearly in earlier adaptations, and I think this is the first version to use pages of the diary as source material which were originally suppressed by Anne's father, the only person of the eight in the annex to survive the war.Iain Glen and Tamsin Grieg are both superb as Anne's parents, while Margot (Felicity Jones) and Peter Van Daan (Geoff Breton) present their characters' limited facets very well. Ron Cook, Lesley Sharp, and Nicolas Farrell play the remaining refugees (Mr and Mrs Van Daan, and dentist Mr Dussell).You get a real sense of what it is to live in a confined space, largely in silence, with only a few hours of respite to go downstairs for food (Peter has to take potatoes from the warehouse below), and to talk and live together in some semblance of real life. For three years this was the life for eight individuals and a cat living in close proximity, sometimes with hope, sometimes with fear.Rightly, this series ends with details of what happened to each of the refugees, and does not flinch from making clear the plight of the Jews outside of the annex, who are taken away in the night and herded into transports towards their death - such a fate also awaits the occupants of the Dutch annex, and it is with a heavy heart we realise this at the end - even though we knew it all the time, we lived in hope along with them.

Just finished watching episode 5 on BBC i-player. I've been familiar with the story of Anne since I was a child, but I've never seen it told so simply or movingly as it has been over the past five nights on BBC2. I'm a cynical 45 yr old bloke, and there's honestly not much that can make me cry... I'll just have to tell my girlfriend that I've got a cold. Sensitive writing and a superb cast turned this into something special... excruciatingly sad, wonderfully uplifting. How can anyone endure the petty posturing of Celebrity Big Brother after watching this? So am I really the only person to be posting about this?