MINISERIES PREMIERE: This new three-part dramatization of the Daphne du Maurier thriller, presented by Acorn TV and doled out in consecutive weekly installments each Monday on
the Acorn TV website beginning today, stars Jessica Brown Findlay, whose unexpected departure as Sybil rocked fans of
Downton Abbey. Here, in this revisiting of the same plot turned into a 1939 Alfred Hitchcock movie, she plays Mary Yellan, a woman who grew up on a farm and, after her parents died, traveled to Cornwall to live with and be sheltered by her aunt – who knew nothing of her impending arrival, or her own sibling’s death. That aunt is played by Joanne Whalley, the nurse in
The Singing Detective, now playing a weathered woman who runs a dreary seaside inn and cowers from her abusive husband (Sean Harris). The cliff faces and meandering moors of Yorkshire provide an evocative setting for all the intrigue, though a lot less regal than that of
Downton Abbey. But as Gothic mysteries go, this one’s a good example of the genre – moor or less.