North and South (2004 TV serial)

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North and South is a BBC television serial which first aired in 2004. It starred Richard Armitage as John Thornton, and Daniela Denby-Ashe as Margaret Hale. It is based on the 1855 Victorian novel of the same title by Elizabeth Gaskell.

The serial also starred Tim Pigott-Smith as Mr Hale, and Sinead Cusack as Mrs Thornton. Anna Maxwell Martin played Bessie Higgins, and Pauline Quirke was the Hale's maid, Dixon.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Photos from the series at the BBC official site
4 External Links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The serial, adapted from the novel by Sandy Welch, stays close to the original in terms of plot, but takes certain liberties with the settings and characters.

Margaret Hale and her parents move to the industrial north of England because her father, an Anglican clergyman, decides to become a Nonconformist. Thanks to his friend, Mr Bell, he is able to find a house and works as a private tutor. One of his pupils is local mill-owner, John Thornton, who gets off to a bad start with Margaret when she witnesses him beating up a worker whom he has caught smoking in the mill. Gradually, Margaret gets used to Thornton, but his mother and sister disapprove of her, believing her southern ways haughty and alien to the customs of the North. In the meantime, Margaret attempts to do charitable work among the working classes, and thus comes into contact with Nicholas Higgins and his daughter, Bessie, whose health has suffered from the effects of working in the mills. (Thornton is presented as an enlightened mill-owner, compared with his fellow industrialists.)

Daniela Denby-Ashe as Margaret

Margaret has another suitor, Henry, a solicitor, whose sophistication compares unfavourably with Thornton's honesty when Margaret sees them together. During an industrial dispute, Margaret defends Thornton from rioting workers, and is injured as a result. When Thornton proposes to her afterwards, she scorns him, thinking he believes himself superior because of the difference in their financial circumstances.

Margaret's brother, Fred, who is in the navy, becomes involved in a mutiny, and is unable to set foot in Britain for fear of arrest. However, as Margaret's mother's health fails, Fred risks discovery to visit her death-bed. He and Margaret are seen together at the railway station by Thornton, who draws the wrong conclusion. Thornton gives employment to Higgins after Bessie's death, but his business is in trouble, and he is forced to close the mill.

Margaret's father dies and she leaves the north to stay with relatives in London, but her godfather, Mr Bell, makes over his fortune to her when he decides to retire, and she becomes the owner of Thornton's factory. Thornton, having discovered the truth about Fred from Mr Higgins, goes south to see Margaret's home town, and on the way back meets her returning from a visit to the north. She proposes a business deal by which the factory can be reopened, and their final love scene takes place on the railway station platform.

Many have compared the North & South storyline to another great English novel, that being Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. There are similarities, (boy meets girl and likes her, girl forms an immediate dislike to boy, girl overcomes her prejudices and likes boy in the end), but they are indeed very different stories and characters.