There must be something in the Cornish water... the cast were all at it like stoats
Passions (and ratings) high as Poldark series steams to a close
OH, that silver-tongued seducer, Half-Blind Hugh the Poet. What Demelza sees in the arty lad is a mystery to me but, whatever it is, she was rolling in the long grass with him as Poldark reached its oversexed finale.
His sight was fading, he pleaded as the waves rolled on the sands. All he asked was for Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson) to let her heart rule her head, ‘so that I might go into the darkness knowing I once tasted heaven’.
In other words – give us a kiss, darling, and drop ’em.
Demelza obliged. She was so obliging that, when Hugh (Josh Whitehouse) groped her knee, she seized his wrist and guided his hand elsewhere.
She had already told husband Ross she dreamed of ‘loving another, just for a day’. He scowled that laser scowl that could burn through steel, but Demelza didn’t care. She was ready to romp.
The Cap’n has kept his britches on throughout this series – it was written into his contract that he would only remove his shirt for bedroom scenes. Aidan Turner, who plays Ross Poldark, was clearly fed up of having his chest hair trimmed with nail scissors.
The rest of the cast have been at it like stoats. There must be something in the Cornish water – ginseng and Viagra, by the look of it.
Randiest of all is the repulsive Reverend, Ossie Whitworth (Christian Brassington). His idea of a sweet nothing was to launch himself at his pregnant wife Morwenna (Ellise Chappell) shouting, ‘You have no right to deny me’ and ‘I shall avail myself’.
YES,he’s a disgusting brute with an unsavoury toe fetish, but his chatup lines do appear to get results. Ossie’s overheated sex drive seemed to have found an outlet last Sunday, as his teenage sister-in-law sat on his lap and popped her corset buttons with one heave of her bosom. We weren’t sure why she was suddenly so amorous but the Rev didn’t ask questions. He just availed himself.
So much availing went on that the vicar had to drug his wife to find enough hours in the day. At first, viewers guessed the little minx Rowella (Esme Coy) was sacrificing her virtue to protect her older sister from Ossie.
It turned out, though, that her virtue was already sacrificed to the local librarian – a gangly lad with a splodge of red hair, like one tomato at the top of a beanpole.
Rowella then claimed she was pregnant, and availed herself of £500 in hush money – between £20,000 and £25,000 at today’s rates. She had a drawing of a birthmark on the vicar’s buttock to prove it. She said it looked like a piglet’s tail – the Georgian equivalent of revenge porn.
Elizabeth (Heida Reed), meanwhile, was telling outright lies. She grabbed the Bible and swore she had ‘given herself’ to no man but her dead husband Francis and her current husband, the colderthan-dead George Warleggan.
Perhaps Elizabeth is hoping to be spared damnation on a techni- cality – she didn’t exactly ‘ give herself’ to Ross. He came and took her. But she liked it.
Demelza, Elizabeth, Morwenna and Rowella... do you see what makes Poldark such dynamic viewing? It’s the array of strong female characters.
This leads to supercharged viewing figures. Poldark is easily the most popular drama on TV, with 6.44million fans – including 1.75m who watch on the catch-up service iPlayer. That makes it as successful as EastEnders.
But almost uniquely on TV today, a cast of powerful women does not dictate that all menfolk must be perverts and inadequates. The vicar is vile but he is balanced by heroic Ross, noble Dr Enys, steadfast Drake Carne, even saltof-the-earth Zacky.
Both men and women can be strong in this world without threatening each other. Ross and Demelza constantly clash – sometimes her will prevails, sometimes his stubbornness. That’s why we love them.
It’s why Poldark is at its weakest when the women are absent. The series suffered its worst dip this year when the Cap’n and his pals went to fight the Frenchies, with interminable all-male scenes.
THEnext series has been commissioned, even if we will have to wait another year or more to discover whether Ross and Demelza’s love can survive her infidelity.
One thing is certain: the show will not continue forever. Writer Debbie Horsfield bases her scripts closely on the 12 Poldark novels by author Winston Graham, who died in 2003. With the end of the third series yesterday, we reached the halfway point. Some fans have suggested the next six books could be comfortably covered in just two more series.
When Poldark ends for good it will leave millions bereft.
Where else can we witness such tumultuous passions in splendid costumes to a backdrop of Britain’s most stunning landscapes?
Cue the sweeping violins. Cut to the waves crashing against the rocks, and the wild gallop at the cliff’s edge. Poldark is doing what it does best.