It has taken me longer than most to start to view this series... and yes I read the books in my younger life. No its not a true dedication of Gerald Durell's books but by crikey the writers of this series have given them a wonderful lease of life. Accolades to you and to the choice of actors. Love love love them! Whoever is in charge of the animals, they are a major and most integral part of this series.YOU deserve the best awards for this ever.(If there are any:)) Thanks to you all .

If you haven't read Gerald Durrell's Corfu Trilogy, or just part of it, then you will probably think this is an entertaining series set in the 1930s. But I have read the books and loved them, and what really stands out for me is the way this adaptation has completely missed the delightful and wicked humour shown in Durrell's books. There are some mildly funny parts, but mostly it's a lot of hand-wringing from Keely Hawes as Louisa, who hardly gets a mention in the books, a lot of sulking and bad behaviour from the three older children and not much about Gerry, who should be the focus of the whole thing. I don't mind writers taking liberties with adaptations of books if it's clear they have read those works and have tried to capture the esence of them for the screen, but this one really misses the mark.

This tells the story of a 1930's typical English family moving to Corfu and trying to make a life and living. Normally I can't stand heart warming fuzzy stuff like this. Period stuff even more. Yet this is nice to watch. They are a nice family and get on most of the time. They occasionally fall out. They don't spend their time trying to get one over each other or others. There is little swearing and sex (no nudity other than the odd bare shoulder). It is just a nice program to watch. I have never read the books and never would. This though tugs at the heart strings and is generally a nice little program to watch with all the family.

I only read one Durrell's book an it is not from the Corfu trilogy, so I was not familiar with it. On the first watch it was painful to see how obnoxious and stupid those children are. They started to live in the house with no water and electricity which is falling apart, with no money and most of the time without the proper food, and they are no help at all. Just concerned on their own selfish interests. I don't know if this is done for the comic effect or it is described like this in the books, but it was really annoying to watch. Fortunately series does have some charms and actors are good in portraying idiots in unusual situations in foreign country so I have stuck to it and after fourth episode I have learned to love it. As they adjusted more to the life on Corfu it became much easier to watch they predicaments and strange reactions and eventually they grow somehow on you. Some things are, I assume, better explained in the books. Like, how did they manage to feed all those animals with so little food even for themselves, but that's television for you. I think the lesson from this story is: bigger the idiot more luck you have. I am looking forward to the second season.