Just what the Doctor ( Thorne) ordered
JULIAN Fellowes’s Doctor Thorne, which hit our screens last night, has been hailed as ITV’s new Downton Abbey. Starring Prince Harry’s ex, Cressida Bonas, the period drama based on Anthony Trollope’s novel is filled with stunning scenery and high- class characters. Daily Express TV critic MATT BAYLIS gives his verdict...
THE line of succession, the search for rightful heirs and the ghosts of past misdeeds haunt TV as much as they do mid- 19th century novels.
With Downton Abbey over, all eyes are on the next, big Sunday- night “thing”. It will have to be a very big thing, of course, and if it doesn’t run for six seasons, sell all over the world and win multiple gongs, everyone will say it wasn’t a worthy successor. Sensibly, it isn’t trying to be.
Doctor Thorne is more of a distinct tale heading in one direction.
Yes, it’s about rich people in grand houses, and the etiquette of status and hierarchy. At heart, though, this is a love story. Miss Mary Thorne ( Stefanie Martini) and Frank Gresham ( Harry Richardson) were childhood sweethearts.
With his family estate in hock to their rapacious neighbour, Sir Roger Scatcherd ( Ian McShane), the onus is on handsome Frank to marry into money. Mary, who has been raised by her principled, but hot- tempered uncle, Dr Thorne ( Tom Hollander), is squeezed out of the picture.
Dr Thorne, however, is the keeper of a secret. Mary is the illegitimate niece of the ailing Sir Roger, and second in line to inherit his fortune.
As an illegitimate child set to inherit from the man who did 10 years for killing her father, Mary is no top- drawer bride of course.
Poisonous female relatives, including snobby mother Lady Arabella ( Rebecca Front) and shrewish aunt, Countess de Courcy ( Phoebe Nicholls) scheme and gossip, doing their best to thwart love and secure fortunes.
It’s tempting to call it Downton with crinoline, but it’s more like country- house Dickens.