It is so very easy to see what has gone wrong with this production. The magnificence of Daphne Du Maurier's work has been taken too lightly, and in some obscure way, it seems to have been deemed old fashioned, and in need of retelling.The direction is without equal in all the realms below average, and scarcely superior to some of the worst ever set loose on the television or film industry. No attempt has been made to create characters even close to those penned by Daphne Du Maurier, and all seem to have been painted variously good, strong, weak, or evil, with a yard broom, and played to the hilt on that basis.Daphne Du Maurier was able to write strong female characters without making them creatures that never existed and probably never will, she understood the evil that people do and the reasons behind it, something which seems to have escaped the sensibilities and sensitivities of the people involved in producing, directing, and even acting, in this travesty of Jamaica Inn.

The fashion for dark realism seems to have permeated even Historical dramas. I suppose they think it underpins the characters with an Earthy veritas and makes them, and their circumstances, seem more real. It is true that the doings on the Cornish coast were pretty dreadful but to depict it in such uniformly depressing tones leaves no room for the light of moral comparison to shine in. It's as if the Human Condition is depicted as black paint on a black canvas. We're all doomed and there's no point in trying.This is the stuff of Literature, we are tempted to think, but, unfortunately, this dark cynicism has not so much given it a Literary sheen but rather the ambiance of a bucket of mud from a marshy strand, full of ugly little creatures all trying to escape from their dire surroundings. The trouble with being too realistic is that Reality is often dull, dour and boring and so to take this attitude when dramatising an Historical novel is really, to drain the romance, and thus the entertainment, from the history. Dickens and Shakespeare, and more recently Ripper Street, have a sort of parallel historical verity by the action being enhanced by beautiful dialogue and richly drawn characters. This dramatisation of Jamaica Inn, however, seems to have reduced Literary endeavours to incoherent grunts, curses and prosaic railings against the brutality of life. I had to stop myself from wistfully hoping that the grim, marshy landscape would be transformed into the polished cobbles of Westward Ho and that the Inn would have a Shepperton makeover to turn it into a shiny Admiral Benbow complete with picturesque pirates and colourful redcoats but, unfortunately, we were stuck, until the final squalid thrashings, with undifferentiated mud and gloom. Our heroine was failed by the absence of the best traditions of female literary creations, and became, not so much a plucky young lass, but just another creature floundering in the mire of the marshes.So when poor Mary Yellan rode off into the sunset with her mud-coloured horse-thief, we could only shrug with the dire certainty that she was merely riding slap-bang (with a guttural grunt)into the mud-encrusted side of the bucket.

The only version of Jamaica Inn I had watched before this was the one with Jane Seymour,which I'm quite fond of.I have noticed that because of recessions,we seem to be having spates of darkly lit grim dramas,and intense acting.There's nothing wrong with that of course,but It starts to feel like all other dramas rolled into one,because really it felt to modern,too abrasive for the time it was meant to be set in,and the excitement and tension was lost (I did feel they gave away the culprit to early).Plus the audio,Sean Harris was the worst,which is a shame,as he is a very good actor,possibly giving the best performance in the entire series,despite his mumbling growls.Jessica Brown Findlay gave a believable performance as Mary Yellan,credit to her that we didn't even remember Lady Sybil as she romanced a thief.Overall a series I watched,but would not watch again,best to watch the Seymour version,or The Thirteenth Tale,the bbc didn't even widely advertise it,and it was remarkably better than this series.

OK so first things first the sound is a bit dodgy, but persevere because the screen crackles with tension. The writing is good and the filming style doesn't disappoint. It's suitably dark, and no one, not even out our heroine Mary Yellen, looks pretty in that vapid way that some costume dramas enjoy. She's a bit grubby, but still attractive, so she seems more realistic, because she isn't portrayed like Anne of Green Shipwrecks. The locations are treated like another character in the story. The acting is exciting, with huge amounts of magnetism. Each character has an interesting back story that is sometimes hinted at, sometimes explained. The thing I noticed first is that everyone is dirty, their hands, their hair, their clothes, and of they would be. Smuggling is a dirty business, this production lets you see just how dangerous and desperate it is.