The Catherine Cookson Collection – Set One

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B-     Extras: C-     Main Programs: B-

 

 

Catherine Cookson become a prolific writer late in life and Acorn Media has issued four adaptations of he works in a new DVD box called The Catherine Cookson Collection – Set One.  The Fifteen Streets is a TV movie about a family suffering hard times in 1900 in tough, class divided Northern England and stars Sean Bean, while the other three adaptations are in mini-series form.

 

The Rag Nymph takes place in 1854 and involves the fate of a young abandoned 7-year old girl and feels like almost the same story Lina Wertmuller told in The Nymph (reviewed in her DVD set elsewhere on this site) except that the female title character is 15 there.  The Moth involves a carpenter who falls for a young lady of a high socio-economic class.  The Wingless Bird takes place in 1913 as WWI arrives and involves middle class prejudice more directly as a woman (Claire Skinner) has to family and work with the usual complications.  As you can see, all are somewhat melodramatic, but the writing and productions rise above that to some extent by being brutal about the time and politics of the period, which is not pretty.  It just depends on how much this era interests you as to whether you will want to get this set or not.  If this is your kind of storytelling, you are bound to love it because all four programs are well done.  However, they do not exceed their trappings either.  Still, I would like to see another set to compare.

 

The 1.33 X 1 image on all four discs is a little fuzzy, though it is also stylized to look a bit diffused.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has Pro Logic surrounds that are surprisingly healthy in all cases.  The same text-only extras on Cookson and applicable casts are on each DVD, but nothing more.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo