Released in weekly episodes, aimed at a new mass audience, prone to sensational plot twists – the similarities between Victorian literature and contemporary television have made them a tempting comparison for cultural historians. Few conferences on popular TV pass without a delegate declaring that a living Dickens would be writing for EastEnders, although today’s Little Nell would doubtless have to endure a custody battle and a siege at the Queen Vic before being killed off during a ratings crisis.
Rather than imagining what the Victorian writers might have done with modern shows, Penny Dreadful reverses the process. An eight-part UK and US co-production involving a headline talent from both countries – the producer Sam Mendes and the writer John Logan (Skyfall, The Aviator) – the period drama, set in London in 1891, is an echo chamber of 19th-century literature. A loose stew of historical and textual allusions (smog, dissected bodies, Romantic poets, Egyptology, photography, vampires, spiritualism) contains more solid offcuts: the characters include Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway), galvanising new life in his laboratory, and Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney), an artist obsessed with sex and death.
Content from our partners
