THE GLOOMINARIES
‘Awful lighting’ in BBC new historical drama leaves some ‘clueless’
Ironic that a telly show called The Luminaries starts off so dark and shadowy
VIEWER ANNA CHEN ON THE MURKY SHADOWS AND LIGHTING IN THE SERIES
BY TOM BRYANT VIEWERS have been left in the dark about new big-budget BBC drama The Luminaries.
Many slammed the show, saying some scenes were so gloomy and poorly lit they could not see anything.
The series – adapted from Eleanor Catton’s 2013 Booker-winning historical epic – is airing on BBC1.
It was watched by an average live audience of 5.3million – the second highest launch for a BBC drama so far this year after The Salisbury Poisonings.
Bond actress Eva Green, Eve Hewson and Himesh Patel star in the adventure mystery set during New Zealand’s gold rush period in the 1860s.
Viewer Anna Chen said: “Ironic that a telly show called The Luminaries starts off so dark and shadowy that you can’t make out what’s happening.”
Jil Fairclough said: “It is muffled, dark and... don’t have a clue what’s going on.”
Veronica Kelly said: “I’ll stick with it but getting bored with muddled timelines (can’t we just have a beginning, middle and end) and awful lighting.”
Rakshita Patel said she would have “appreciated better lighting throughout so you could actually see what was going on in key scenes”.
The issue of lighting is not new for the BBC.
In 2015, it came under fire for their adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall.
Director Peter Kosminksy used lowlight cameras, with Mantel saying the candlelight helped put actors into the “Tudor frame of mind”.
The Luminaries director has previously said the lighting is deliberate and adds a “sense of mystery”.
Claire McCarthy explained: “We wanted a kind of burnished golden world.
“Not only did we have to research how gold could be filmed but also just the way we would light largely through flame, candlelight and natural light.”