Justine Waddell was fond of her character, Molly
Gibson: "When I first read the script, I thought it
was very funny. What struck me was the humour and the scale of it.
There are so many fully formed characters. Over the series we laugh and cry with
Molly. Relationships are developed through her and
characters are seen though her eyes. That means - I
hope - that viewers will identify with her. That's a
wonderful responsibility to have."12
In order to play Molly as Elizabeth Gaskell wrote
the character, Waddell had to suppress her modern
instincts for the role. "Today's teenagers are streetwise and
independent. I had to forget the knowingness of a
modern-day woman and play Molly with a sense of
purity. You're constantly walking a tightrope. But
the director never said to me 'that's too modern', so
I hope I've got it right." 13
Waddell was particularly attracted to the character
because of Molly's purity, kindness and humility: "Molly is very
caring about people. It's good that she takes people
on trust. I like the fact that she is old-fashioned and sexually
naive, too - she doesn't [care] about what she looks
like. Nowadays teenagers are so sexually precocious; we've
lost that sense of childish innocence...
What's appealing is that Molly's so ordinary. She's
completely straightforward and unpretentious.
That chimes with the whole piece because 'Wives and
Daughters' is a very ordinary story.
There's nothing heroic about it. It's like a
contemporary drama about an everyday small community
filled with everyday characters."14
Waddell remarks on the transformation of her
character through the course of the miniseries:
"Viewers will want to follow her journey from teenager
to woman, but as an actress, it's difficult to play someone growing up over four
years. At the start, she's a very sheltered 17-year-old, but then her world breaks
apart. Through this experience she blossoms into
adulthood. She's taken some very hard knocks and learned from
them. She's resolved the tension between what she is and what people want her to be.
The story is about her sentimental education. Molly learns so much from
Cynthia about the ways of the world. Though difficult,
Cynthia shows her the importance of love." 15
On the challenges of playing Molly, Waddell adds:
"Molly is challenging because she is so ordinary.
I felt vulnerable playing her. Molly's intuition is to
trust and be loyal and kind, things I'd call
old-fashioned or naïve." The challenge was compounded
by the fact that Molly often had to react
speechlessly: "I don't spend a lot of time looking in the mirror, so
when I watch myself on film, I am often surprised
at what my face does. Molly has to learn to combine
her natural openness with a degree of social
restraint. There are moments in life when you think, 'I have to
hide this because I have to face other people'. It's
part of becoming an adult." 16
On the lasting appeal of the story, Waddell adds:
"It's about families that break apart and come back together. Anyone can understand
stories about family strife. Everybody has experienced love and death.
Those things happen in every family."17
On his character, Osborne Hamley, actor Tom
Hollander remarks that the role appealed to him because it was so
different from what he had done previously:
"It's the first straight part I've played for a long
time. I've done lots of comedy recently and
things where I'm disguised as an upper-class twit, but
this is a straight emotional romance." In particular,
Hollander felt the character had real depth: "Osborne
is a failure, and in playing that an actor
can indulge all those sides of himself he normally has
to suppress. He symbolizes the end of
youth. He's someone whose childhood promise has not
been fulfilled by his adult life. But what I particularly liked about Osborne is that
he's not a hero. He's not formulaic or stereotypical. Unlike, say, Mr. Darcy, he's not your
familiar, tall, handsome hero. The audience is not initially sure whether he's a
villain or a good guy. Elizabeth Gaskell keeps us guessing, but eventually it turns out that he
did what he did for love."18
In Hollander's eyes, it is this ambiguity that
makes Gaskell such a universal writer:
"Gaskell wasn't taken as seriously as some of her
contemporaries, but her writing is very TV-friendly.
She writes about people in a very human way. She shows
them to be contradictory and sophisticated.
Covering the gamut of human emotions, 'Wives and
Daughters' is like the very best soap opera."19
The character of Cynthia immediately appealed to
actress Keeley Hawes: "When I read the script I
thought she was hilarious -- quite camp in a Diana
Dors way and very funny. She's vampy and flirtatious,
but doesn't realize it. She tries to keep everybody
happy, including the men, and it gets out of control.
She's not equipped to cope. She returns from France and brings
with her modern ideas and fashions which are
desperately exciting to the people of Hollingford.
They know there's going to be a touch of glamour
involved - it's a bit like Marilyn Monroe arriving in
Hollingford. Cynthia is also very witty. Her antennae
are out all the time, and she is able to tell so much about
people from the littlest things. Rather than playing
someone downtrodden, it was nice to play someone so lively. I
couldn't have asked for anything better."20
On the story itself, Hawes adds: "The script has
such a contemporary resonance. People will always
have these problems and sadnesses. 'Wives and
Daughters' contains everything that modern life can throw at you.
People will relate to that. If people don't have these difficulties in their own
lives, then at least they'll enjoy watching
someone else suffering them!"21
Acclaimed British actress Francesca Annis remarks
of her character, Mrs. Gibson: "When you hear it's a
classic BBC serial, you wonder what sort of
middle-aged mum Mrs. Gibson is going to be. But in
fact she overturns expectations; she's very different.
People ask, 'isn't she terribly manipulative?' but
I don't see her like that. To me, she's just a shallow
person who's able to skate over things that
would be offensive to others. She is a survivor. She
has the ability to twist and turn with the wind - not
because she's Machiavellian, but because she's
practical. People tend to forget how important it was in those
days to be settled. All middle-class mothers
had to be ambitious for their girls. I don't see that
as offensive. After all, what else was there
for them? A life as a governess?"22
Annis remarks: "She was great fun to do... I don't
think we realize now what it was like to be a single
mum then, you know. And, um, you had to just look out
for yourself, and the only way you could create another home for yourself,
if you didn't have money, was to remarry... But I thought she was great,
and I suppose I'd say I don't think she's hard and manipulative -- I think actually she's
just shallow!" Annis adds: "She's a very opinionated
woman and when things aren't going to go her way,
she bends herself around to suit the occasion. That's
just like contemporary parenthood, really. You think you're in control and
the it turns out that your kids are going to do what they want to do anyway.
I am a parent and I brought my children
up in a liberal household. So I have children who
expect to be heard. In that sense, I didn't have a
problem identifying with Mrs. Gibson.' "23
As for the novel itself, Annis was impressed by its
continued universal appeal: "The things it's concerned about are things that we're
still concerned about today -- the role of step parents and single parents.
It's not the subtext in Wives And Daughters, it's completely open. So
you can see why it rings bells. I believe the novel is highly recommended in
family therapy. That doesn't surprise me because when I read it, it struck a lot of
chords with me. I thought: 'These girls are flouncing around in a way
that I wouldn't want my children to do today'. In 1810, there was an awful lot
of flouncing and slamming doors... You know, this is about domestic
rage and fury from a daughter -- a very independent young girl, Molly, who's been with
her father... and suddenly the stepmother arrives in
her house, which she considers to be her area, and how
they all handle these new relationships, which is something that everyone's
interested in today."24
Scottish actor Bill Paterson (Mr. Gibson), remarks
that he was closer to his character, kindly doctor who cherishes his only daughter, than many he has
played in the past: "I thought he was a very
well-rounded human being, a nice mixture
of compassion and feisty. He seemed like a person.
I'm closer to Mr. Gibson than a lot of characters I've
played. His sense of priorities is not a million miles away
from my own. Quite early on you see his predicament. He is a
widowed father striving to bring up his daughter properly -- and yet he makes the
understandable mistake of marrying the wrong person. It's not a marriage from
hell; it's just that Mrs. Gibson wants a type of life
that doesn't suit him. Mr. Gibson is very human.
Being a father, I instantly understood the warmth
between the father and the daughter, and when she gets to the stage of moving
away from him and entertaining suitors, you can feel the tension in him.
He wants the best for her, but doesn't want to lose her. Any parent will
understand that." 25
On Gaskell's writing, Paterson adds: "Her writing
has the acuteness of a psychoanalyst and there's a
very modern tone to it. She was also writing about a
period when medical science was on the brink of many
crucial breakthroughs. Within a few years of Mr.
Gibson's time, they were moving into the era of
anesthetics, antiseptic surgery and the whole
Darwinian question of the origin of the species. Mr.
Gibson was interested in all these developments. It
was a fascinating time - and mirrors our own. We're so
interested now in the manipulation of science and
genetic engineering. Mr. Gibson and Molly get caught
up in the natural sciences - which makes them very
modern." 26
Regarding Molly,
screenwriter Andrew Davies remarks: "I think she's
just utterly lovable, really. It's a pretty close run between her
and Elizabeth Bennet in 'Pride and Prejudice' for the
most appealing heroine in English literature. I'm the
father of a daughter, and Molly brought out those
feelings in me. You feel very protective towards her, even though she
can stick up for herself. She's not the prettiest girl
in the story, and you sympathize with her when all these
chaps look past her and see Cynthia and immediately
stop paying her any attention."27
As for the worldly Cynthia and Mr. Preston, Davies
tried to make both characters multi-dimensional:
"[Molly and Cynthia] are complete opposites, but they actually find they
like each other very much. I'm sure that if Cynthia
was in a George Eliot novel, she'd get no sympathy at
all, because George Eliot was always down on these very
attractive, flighty, selfish, pretty girls who get all
the men, whereas Gaskell makes Cynthia very real and
three-dimensional. We can see her problems and get to
love her, just as Molly does. Gaskell does a similar thing with the land
agent Preston. In a lot of people's novels, he'd be a
rather two-dimensional villain, whereas in this one we can
see what has made him like this and how his suffering
is really genuine."28
As for the complex Osborne, Davies says: "He was
the character who gave me the most problem with the
script, because when I read the book, I thought... 'This is the first
gay character in 19th-century literature!' Then I
thought: 'No, it couldn't be.' You get the feeling when Osborne
comes on that the revelation about him is going to be
that he's gay, because in the book he really is quite effeminate in
his manner. He seems to be a caricature of a gay
character. He's always talking about the opera, he's very good
with older ladies, he has a very close relationship
with his mother, he can't stand his father. The secret French
wife and the child seemed a bit unlikely to me, and so
I tried to make him more Keatsian - not a drooping spirit, but
a passionate, poetic character, who just had the bad
luck to have a growing and fatal illness."29
On the lasting appeal of Wives and
Daughters, Davies concludes: "It's a situation
that can appeal to audiences today because, in a way, it's about second families,
isn't it? In the book, of course, you've got second
families because of people dying young. Nowadays, it's because
of divorce and remarriage. But the problems are the
same, aren't they?"30
Applause, Awards and the Aftermath
After finishing
the production, Sue Birtwistle remarks: "It [was]
lovingly carried through. Nick [Renton, series director] and I
[worked] on it a year now, and
we're still enjoying working together, even in dark
rooms every day, dubbing and so on.
We are tired, I have to say. Tired but happy. We've
enjoyed it." 31
By contrast, Andrew Davies (who tends to stay away
from both filming and post-production and for the
first time watched
an episode before its airing) was "delighted" with the
end result: "The anxiety is that you have to do
justice to
the book. You have to do it slowly. I tried to start
writing it in 50-minute episodes. But it didn't work,
because, in getting all the plot in, you were losing
the things that make the book what it is. So we
decided to gamble on it, and develop it gradually.
Occasionally, I get these urges to direct it myself,
out of self-defense or something. But then I remind myself
how it always rains, and so on. And I'm quite
impatient - I'd be inclined to say after the first
take, 'Well that was quite good, wasn't it?' "
32
The first airing of "Wives and Daughters" in London
went head to head with the debut of a new
television adaptation of "Oliver Twist," in what was
called "a battle of the costume blockbusters."
Producer
Sue Birtwistle recalls the concern over its ratings,
given the downturn in rating for period dramas since
the glory days of "Pride and Prejudice": "Mind you, it took me
ten years to sell 'Pride and Prejudice', because there
was 'no appetite' for classic drama. And I kept saying, I
think there is, let me do it, let's see. And it was
successful - because there will always be an appetite for a good
story well told. [And] Jane Austen is big
box-office...I [was] very aware that [Elizabeth Gaskell] is not as
well-known as Jane Austen. I was told Pride and
Prejudice was the best-selling novel in the English language in
the world. You can't do much better than that. I just
hop[ed] that even if we [said], 'Some of the people who did
'Pride and Prejudice' are doing this', we [would] get people to give us a go. I hope[d]
they'[d] tune in to episode one and stick with it." 33
When "Wives and Daughters" first aired on British
television in 1999, critics hailed it as rivaling the well-acclaimed
"Pride and Prejudice," noting that "this series has a
serious claim to be crowned the best costume drama of the decade."
Francesca Annis was nominated for a BAFTA award (the
British equivalent of an Emmy Award) for her role as Mrs. Gibson, and
Michael Gambon won a BAFTA for his role as Squire
Hamley. "Wives and Daughters" also won three BAFTA awards for
best design, best make-up and hair, and best
photography and lighting.
Actress Justine Waddell was surprised by the amount
of fan mail she received after the production aired in
England: "Particularly from teen-agers -- especially young
women -- about how much they loved Molly. Or people
from a broken family who said that they had never seen a costume
drama but really understood the whole stepmother
situation." 34
Interestingly enough, English critics initially
complained that Andrew Davies' script seemed to modern, as Davies
recalls: "One thing that's nice about this novel is
that Gaskell writes beautiful dialogue that differentiates the characters
to a large extent. It was interesting that in England
when this film came out a couple of critics complained that
the dialogue sounded too modern. They quoted phrases
that in fact I'd copied straight out of the book!"
35
Film Stills
