Rowan Hedge, I don't get why you feel the need to insult Jessica Brown-Findlay in such a personal way. Frankly, it makes it harder to take your criticism of her acting seriously. You seem to be on the warpath against her in general, so of course you are going to be just as nasty about her acting skills as you are about everything else to do with her.

I understand that some (including you) are not impressed with her acting. I think she's terrific, as do a few others who have posted as such on this board. And the ones casting her in various projects apparently like her too.

To suggest that she is sleeping her way into these jobs is the vilest of personal attacks. I am sure you don't even believe it yourself, frankly. And since you have repeatedly said she is ugly, how can you reconcile that with your allegations about the casting couch? saying she is only getting jobs based on her shaggability? You're undermining your own argument.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. Most consider her to be a beautiful young woman. She was usually referred to as "the hot sister" or "the hottest one" when she was on Downton. And bear in mind that she filmed this production with no makeup whatsoever and a crap hairstylist, apparently.

I wish I could look that good without makeup. And so do many women, I imagine.

Whatever. I would not even be addressing you if I didn't find your insinuations about her sex life so disgusting.

By the way, as far as whether the sound was better during the pre-screening? I read a few reviews written by people who had pre-screened it and none had anything negative to say about the sound. Or about her acting, for that matter.

I don't think all the actors are to blame for the mum mumbling. The vicar and the emmerdale lad never mumbled in all three episodes ( this prove to me it wasn't sound or technical issues) lady Sybil could be heard in some parts and Jem was better understood when he became irish in the last episode.

At the end if the day the director should of noticed it and so should the people who watched it before it went out on air

I so agree with what has been said here, especially in the first 4-5 paragraphs, it's like you read my mind! Just a couple exceptions in the rest of it: JBF was alright, her portrayal didn't wow me; from when she was taken to the vicar's house after the murder of her aunt and uncle until the end wasn't great, but her acting skills are not as terrible as some have expressed on this thread. And I thought the lighting wasn't the greatest either.

Other than that, it was a decent drama. I'm in the midst of watching the 1983 one that someone kindly put the you tube link to, and I've nearly burnt the family dinner due to being quite hooked on it! I'm up to the part where Joss and Patience are thinking off getting the heck out of Jamaica Inn and so far, the dialogue is very clear, even when Joss is drunk, and the scenes are as picturesque and lit finely. For something over 20 years old, unfortunately - overall - it's better than the BBC's offering.

JBF seems to be polarizing. Not in your case, but it's odd to come on here and find everything from "she's craptastic and fugly" to "she's gorgeous and BAFTA-worthy".

I think she is a great raw talent, which is to say she's a natural who needs to hone her skills. And she is apparently a very hard worker, which is to be expected from a former serious ballerina. So I think her stock is going to rise. She's not just a pretty face.

But frankly, I don't see how anyone could say she is terrible. I've seen terrible and she's not in that category. Her biggest detractor on this thread is hyperbolic to say the least. Not to mention crude.

As for that climactic scene? The Shootout at the Cornwall Corral was just dopey. It was tense enough, what with the guns and the four lives at stake. But there was not nearly enough build-up to it.

In five minutes Davey morphed from a morally stalwart Vicar to a crazed nihilist bent on sacrificing Mary in some Pseudo-Pagan ritual among the stones. I think all the actors did the best they could with it, but it sort of came out of the blue. I was engrossed when I was watching it, but in hindsight the whole sequence was rather WTF.

Just thought I'd bring this back to say that I should have continued with that sentence 'I couldn't understand a lot of Mary's lines' with
'I found this to be when Mary was narrating and her voice seemed to be quite deep. When it was that deep, her words seemed to become more inaudible at the end of her lines .. for me, anyway). This was not meant to be a criticism of her acting, more talking about the sound.

Final note on the Jem character. I can't quarrel with the casting choice or his acting. He was just too lovable for me to do that. But he didn't seem dangerous enough to me for Mary to be THAT threatened by her feelings for him. Fear of being abandoned (and maybe impregnated) I get. But not fear of whether or not she could "survive him."

He also did not seem quite as grimly determined as I would have expected when he was negotiating for Mary's life. It felt a bit like a cowboy caper.

This Jem was an Aladdin figure: a charmingly roguish petty thief, rough around the edges but with a romantic soul and puppy-dog eyes. He was a bit too tame. But I can't complain, because he was just too damned adorable.

That's like saying you can't complain if you get served raw meat in a restaurant because you're not a Michelin star chef. Of course, acting is much more subjective than that; if you dislike a certain actor you may find it hard to believe them in other roles where they do a good job. If you've seen somebody act well in something, you'll expect a better performance here than someone who has watched the actor do a bad performance.

I gave up after the first episode, not for the inaudible dialogue (though I did turn the TV up load) but because I found it way too slow moving. I read the book a long time ago


I was quite young at the time but I do remember a version of Jamaica Inn in the 80s starring Jane Seymour which was I recall much better, would watch that again.

Again - fully agree. the 20mins or so before the end seems to happen as if the scriptwriter had originally wrote it to last double the time and got told last minute to drastically cut it back.
If you have two and half hours spare, have look at the 1983 version on youtube. I'm coming to the end of it now, my only criticism of it where Mary's mum dies, kinda happens pdq for my liking! But that's only a minute scene and doesn't spoil the episode at all.

I'm only on the first episode so far but he does a great balance of authenticity and comprehensibility. There's enough of an accent there to know that the character's Cornish but you can still hear everything.

Because drama isn't real life?

Talk about miscasting! Although saying that, Mellors is relatively unattractive in the book. Sean Bean was certainly an improvement!

I recorded all three episodes, and I've just watched the first one.

In my opinion, it's probably the worst thing I've ever seen on BBC. And that's even without the sound issues, since I'd read about them, and had subtitles on. The pace was far too slow, the acting encouraged laughter rather than suspense.

As for the lead actress - just a blank face forever staring into space. I can only assume she's related to an established actor.

I probably don't need to add that I've deleted episodes 2 and 3.

Well I don't know but the whole point is that she isn't really scared of him, not the real him anyway. She is afraid of falling in love and she misunderstands Jem and is prejudice against him: She thinks he is just like Joss. Jem is nothing like Joss or some Heathcliff figure. I think he played him very well.

In fact I would say that the fault of this piece lies with the Director and the writer. All those actors are ten times better in other things. They went for the realism aesthetics and it backfired. My advice for them is next time do not be so arrogant and consider more what the audience sees rather than the oh so clever gimmics.

Having said that Jem and Mary raised the bar by about a hundred everytime they were on screen together... they have that rare thing between actors genuine chemistry. Don't know what causes it, probably luck but they were wasted on this. They could play some of the more renowned couplings think they would be very good. They are casting around for War and Peace I hear.

I got that sense as well. Even if he isn't the same kind of bad as Joss, he still needs to have a bit of badness. He just seems like a bit of a rogue or scamp and none of the town seem to particularly mind him so there's not any real social pressure of loving him. That element just felt a bit too cliche and an unnecessary dropping of tension and stakes when you could have something fiery and dramatic.

Hear, hear - we know what good and bad acting is, we don't have to be RADA graduates to know that! Jeez...... (If I get on a bus and the driver's bashing into cars and going up on the pavement, I don't need a PSV licence in order to be able to detect that he's driving appallingly!)

A good actor needs to be able to inhabit his character plausibly - if we can 't believe in him as that character, then it means that he's not doing the job competently (although he might be able to do it better elsewhere - e.g. SH as Brady). This is where the casting director comes in - trying to force a square peg into a round hole is doing nobody any favours. They clearly had their reasons for casting SH in this role, but I doubt whether we will ever find these out! I can understand the arguments for 'casting against type', but it's usually a gamble - and in this case casting someone who was so opposite to the character in every way was always going to be a massive risk.

I think - not in this version - that Joss was handsome, charming and roguish when he met the Aunt and swept her off her feet and look how she ended up! It would make Jem 'dangerous' in Marys eyes in case she ended up the same, I think that works best though if you can literally see something of Jem in Joss and vice versa. Plus she was a well brought up 'moral' girl and he was a horse thief so definitely would lead a dangerous life style - not at all what she had been used to. I think the fact that he was so gorgeous is exactly what would make her think - 'Oh what the hell'!!

I think because he made a good villain in Southcliffe they thought that he'd bring a degree of credibility, seeing as the other leads are relatively lightweight. I suppose it also fitted in with them not wanting to do a typical BBC costume drama, by getting someone who played a modern type of villain.

I think a large part of it is direction. Either he did it like that and they couldn't tell him no or they asked him to play it like that. If the character was meant to be a weaselly villain who could barely string a sentence together and was not quite all there, Harris did a good job. But it was like he was in another TV programme, as accents aside everyone else was clear enough, if a bit quiet.

Always hated the book,its a personal thing based on the main concept wrecking was total tosh and dont get me started on her time slip novel

Well we recorded all three parts and planned to watch them tonight .

We gave up after the first one be deleted the lot . The sound wasn't a problem apart from the landlord who was mumbling too much . We just weren't interested in the story or the people , too slow and ponderous .

They had wonderful chemistry. The scene at the Inn was pitch-perfect IMO, and even more so because they were interrupted. Keeping it unconsummated kept the tension going.

I don't think it's all luck, though. I have not seen McNulty in anything else but he seems like he's good at establishing chemistry. JBF had good chemistry with her Downton love interest as well, when the script allowed it And with Colin Farrell in Winters Tale.

Actually, Winters Tale is another example of a film/series that was hugely flawed but featured great chemistry between the romantic leads. The best parts of the movie were the scene where JBF's character met Farrell's and the love scene.

And to answer what one of the posters above suggested, JBF is not related to anyone in the entertainment industry. She has no connections at all. She was a serious ballerina, had to give it up due to an ankle injury and then switched to acting. She got an agent when she was about twenty and landed a role in an indie movie for which she received great reviews.

And she's been getting good roles ever since. I agree in the first episode she seems very sullen and disengaged. But that changes pretty dramatically in the second and third episodes. Again, especially in the scenes with Jem who was well-cast and spoke intelligibly like she did.

Like you said, these actors have all been better in other things. Although I do think there is some very good acting in the series, despite the obstacles.

I recorded all 3 episodes, the second one failed for some reason but I thought I'd get it on catch up. Nope, it's only in HD! Oh well, I had quite enjoyed the first one, maybe because I knew to expect the mumbling.

What was ridiculous to me was Joss and Jem were supposed to be brothers yet Joss had an impenetrable accent and Jem spoke clearly! What did their parents do differently?!!

That's true. But I still think it was the miscasting and direction of the Joss character that was at fault.
He was played as a mumbling, pantomime villain without an ounce of charisma. Can you imagine what someone like Dominic West would have done with that part.

Gone global:

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/popcor...umbles-lately/