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Customer Reviews of The Blackheath Poisonings

Victorian mystery
The 3 hour-long BBC television production "The Blackheath Poisonings" is a period piece set in Victorian England. It concerns the Collard and Vandervent families--joined by marriage and a toy manufacturing business. The extended families all live together in the sumptuous family mansion, and the matriarch, Harriet Collard (Judy Parfitt) rules everyone with a rod of iron. Harriet has three children: Beatrix who is married to Roger, Georgie who is married to Isabel, and old maid Charlotte. Charlotte cast her eyes on the unreliable adventurer, Robert Dangerfield--a match most members of the family find quite unsuitable.

The atmosphere in the Collard/Vandervent mansion is suffocating and oppressive at best. All the inhabitants find methods of release, and some of the habits are inevitably destructive. It seems two of the family--related by marriage--are indulging in a passionate love affair under the very noses of everyone else. But just as the affair may be revealed, one of the family members dies a horrible death. Is it "gastric misadventure" as the puffy, old family doctor announces, or is poison the cause of death?

The sets, costumes and acting of this BBC production are all, as always, impeccable. The plot is initially very strong and compelling. Everyone is a suspect, everyone has a motive, and this makes for a fascinating story. The plot very cleverly plays with all the suspects, so that at first you think perhaps it's one character, but then suspicion shifts to someone else. However, the denouement is far too rapid, disjointed and choppy. After the truth is revealed, the explanation seems preposterous. Many unanswered questions remain and consequently one is left with the lingering feeling of disappointment--displacedhuman

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Victorian murder mystery....
The BLACKHEATH POISONINGS is a great film. Originally, a BBC/Masterpiece presentation on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting network, the film features a cast of familiar British faces such as Judy Parfitt (JEWEL IN THE CROWN, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE), Patrick Malahide (MIDDLEMARCH, THE SINGING DECTECTIVE); Zoe Wanamaker (MORSE) and dozens of other actors you've seen in various Mystery Theater presentations.

The transfer of the film is reasonably good. The plot is very complex. The cast of characters excepting the doctors who treat the poisoned and the police who investigate what turns out to be murder, are all members of the same family). The family business is toy manufacturing, and a number of curious 19th century toys are featured in various scenes. The action takes place in a fabulous Victorian house (red and green and filled with nicknacks), a 19th century factory, a brothel, a train station, a cemetery, and a park. Think Sherlock Holmes crossed with Gilbert and Sullivan.

Parfitt plays the domineering, stingy, and uptight matriarch "she who must be obeyed" to a family comprised of resentful adult children - sons, sons-in-law, daughters, nephews, stepchildren. The seven deadly sins are represented by the various family members - anger, lust, greed, avarice, lust - did I say lust? Sex and money are at the root of their problems - often the case in repressed Victorian society.

This mystery is SO good my 74-year old husband who usually falls asleep at 8:00 p.m. in front of the tv stayed awake until 11:20 p.m. When I asked him 2/3 of the way through the three hour showing if he wanted to continue, he said, "Bring her on."