Based on Charles Dickens’ celebrated unfinished novel -
'The Mystery of Edwin Drood' airs on MASTERPIECE CLASSIC Sunday, April 15th from 8-10pm on WTVP-HD.
On June 8, 1870, Charles Dickens concluded a full-day’s work
on his latest novel and set down his pen. He died the next day, leaving The Mystery of Edwin Drood a mystery
indeed. MASTERPIECE CLASSIC
uses clues left by the author himself, together with inspired guesswork, to solve this famous literary puzzle.
Adapted and completed by Gwyneth Hughes (Miss Austen Regrets),
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
stars Matthew Rhys (Brothers & Sisters), Tamzin Merchant (The Tudors), and Julia MacKenzie (Miss
Marple), and airs Sunday, April 15th from 8-10pm on WTVP-HD.
MASTERPIECE’s resolution of the intricately tangled plot is a fitting tribute to
Dickens 200th birthday, celebrated in 2012.
The recent UK broadcast of The Mystery of Edwin Drood enthralled critics, with
The Sunday Telegraph (London) praising its “darkly compelling pull.” The Guardian (London) applauded
the film’s “uniformly brilliant performances.” And The Daily Telegraph (London) saw it as “the evil twin of
A Christmas Carol … another story in which a central character is visited by ‘Specters … at midnight,’” adding,
“Gwyneth Hughes has found a solution that is clever and ingenious.”
Joining the cast are Ron Cook (Little Dorrit), Alun Armstrong (Bleak House), Freddie Fox
(Any Human Heart), Rory Kinnear (Cranford), Ian McNeice (David Copperfield), Amber Rose Revah
(House of Saddam), and Sacha Dhawan (The History Boys).
In failing health as he wrote the serialized installments of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Dickens
abandoned the sunny geniality of his earlier work for a plot that was more dreamlike, erotic, and sinister than
anything he had ever published. He was halfway though his dark tale when he died.
The story opens in an opium haze, as John Jasper (Rhys) smokes his way into oblivion to take his mind
off his detested duties as a village choirmaster—and to fantasize about murdering his guileless nephew, Edwin Drood
(Fox). Drood is engaged to marry the beautiful Rosa Bud (Merchant), with whom Jasper is perversely in love.
He is not alone. A mysterious visitor from Ceylon, Neville Landless (Dhawan), has arrived in town with
his twin sister, Helena (Revah). Taking an intense interest in Rosa, Landless objects to Drood’s treatment of her,
sparking a feud between the two young men. At the same time, Helena becomes Rosa’s best friend.
Meanwhile, Jasper’s curiosity about possible resting places for the dead takes him to the crypt
beneath the cathedral where he works, with the eccentric stonemason Durdles (Cook) as his guide. Durdles has the
unnerving habit of referring to himself in the third person, as if his body is somewhere else.
From there, things get spookier and spookier, until Drood disappears on the night of his supposed
reconciliation with Landless.
There are no end of Dickensian suspects who may have wished Drood harm. Besides Jasper, Rosa, and the
Landless twins, there are Rosa’s pathologically generous guardian, Hiram Grewgious (Armstrong); the too-good-to-be-true
Reverend Crisparkle (Kinnear); and the self-important Mayor Sapsea (McNeice), who happens to have a gigantic key to
an empty tomb.
Even MASTERPIECE MYSTERY’s Miss Marple is on the scene—at least the actress (MacKenzie)
who plays her is, starring as Reverend Crisparkle’s nosy mother, who is too jumpy to crack a case.
Which is just as well, for Marple and Poirot combined could never guess the solution to this supreme
mystery of mysteries!
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
is a BBC/MASTERPIECE Co-Production, directed by Diarmuid Lawrence and written by Gwyneth Hughes, based on the
unfinished novel by Charles Dickens. The Producer is Lisa Osborne. The Executive Producers are Anne Pivcevic for
the BBC and Rebecca Eaton for MASTERPIECE on PBS.
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About Masterpiece MASTERPIECE
on PBS is presented by WGBH Boston. Rebecca Eaton is executive producer. Funding for MASTERPIECE is provided by
Viking River Cruises, with additional support from public television viewers and contributors to The MASTERPIECE
Trust, created to help ensure the series’ future. Visit
pbs.org/masterpiece
for more information about MASTERPIECE and The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
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For further information contact Linda Miller, WTVP Vice President of
Programming,
at (309) 495-0591 or linda.miller@wtvp.org
