Sunday, February 3, 2008

Mrs. Bradley Series
[1998, 2000]

Starring:
Diana Rigg
Neil Dudgeon
Peter Davidson
and guest appearances of:
Phyllida Law
David Tennant
etc.

average rating: ★
~
performance: ★
screenplay:
plot/storyline:
cinematography:
~
Mysteries set in the 20's... Rad fashion... Lovely acting...

I personally loved the Mrs. Bradley series. We had picked it up at the library once before, neglected to watch it because it looked really lame, and returned it. We didn't even think about it again until Mom reserved "The Avengers," which Diana Rigg
stars in, and somehow we wound up with the Mrs. Bradley mysteries on our T.V. room floor again. And I'm very glad we did.

Diana Rigg and Neil Dudgeon were great. Diana plays a smart, stylish, witty lady (and oldish lady), Adela Bradley, who works as an investigator and is very knowledgeable in all things Freudian. She is really great, her voice is awesome. With her is her endearingly loyal chauffeur, George Moody (Dudgeon), who always helps her with her mystery. If he wasn't in the series, I wouldn't have watched all of the episodes. They act together really, really naturally and it was very cute.

The stories were really silly, with lots of stabbing, bloodiness, choking, screaming and all that jazz. The mysteries were not necessarily predictable (we had fun guessing the culprits) but they were very silly.

The series are set in the 20's, and with the 20's comes the fashion and the music. Mrs. Bradley wears a different outfit every day, consisting of an outrageous hat and dress. At the beginning of each episode there is a really funny little song, and all of the rest is lots of crazy jazz. It's really quite hilarious.

Anyway, however tacky or silly this show might have been, there were many points at which we laughed out loud, wondered (with some concern) what was going to happened, and smiled.

2 comments:

margaret said...

I've never heard of this! Where have I been?

c. said...

In a barn!!