One of the delights of the streaming age is that competition between channels sometimes leads one of them to offer little-known or forgotten gems. Case in point: Tubi is currently carrying a Bafta-winning ITV mini-series of which you have probably never heard unless you were living in Britain when it was broadcast in 1994: Dandelion Dead.
Based on a sensational 1922 murder case, the plot centers on Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong (Michael Kitchen), a weak, bibulous, failing solicitor living on the Welsh-English border. Despite the meagerness of his income from legal practice, he and his three children live a respectable and comfortable life due to the inherited wealth of his wife Catherine (Sara Miles). Unfortunately, she is a harridan and the marriage is virtually barren of love, though the perfectly mannered Major works hard to maintain civility at home and a proper front in public, even when his wife goes out of her way to humiliate him. Meanwhile his professional life is increasingly beleaguered by his inability to close the a sale of an estate controlled by a drunken, wealthy client (Robert Stephens) and the arrival in town of a young, smart, professional rival (David Thewlis). If there were only some way he could make his problems disappear….
Screenwriter Michael Chaplin did a brilliant job going beyond the historical facts of the case to develop the early relationship of Herbert and Catherine (which humanizes both of them) as well as the lives of their children, especially the eldest daughter Eleanor (very well played by young Chloe Tucker). He also managed to inject some black humor, while not shying away from the ice cold aspects of the story.
Michael Kitchen is in top form here. When given a script, most actors ask for more lines. Kitchen is known for asking for fewer so that he can rely on his extraordinary gift for portraying thoughts and emotions non-verbally. When he first thinks of poisoning his wife, he steps outside and overhears through a window his children talking. As the camera rests on his face, it’s absolutely riveting to watch each twist of his lip, furrowing of the brow, wince of his face and wonder what he is thinking and what he is going to do.
The rest of the cast sparkle too, including Miles, who makes Catherine more than a termagant, which is essential to explain why Herbert still finds something in her to love. Lesley Sharp is delightful too, as a local woman who woos Thewlis’ character while making him believe he’s wooing her.
Almost incredibly, the director of this handsomely produced story of upper-middle class angst is Mike Hodges, who also directed the gritty, brutal gangster classic Get Carter (My recommendation here). Throw in that he also helmed the campy science fiction cult favorite Flash Gordon, the strange but delightful comedy thriller Pulp, and multiple admired British television documentaries, and you have the variegated career of a man who could do anything in cinema, was always desperate to work, or some combination thereof (Good late-life interview about his career by the BFI here). Regardless, this mini-series is another feather in his cap.
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