BBC Miniseries The Way We Live Now

2 Part BBC Adaptation of Trollope's Best Work

One can usually yawn when the BBC takes over a good book, soap opera in bustles and cravats, good furnishings, mediocre costumes, the same old faces. Not this time. This hilarious 2001 adaptation is not as boring as the James dramas, by a long shot. Here are first rate performances by a really decent ensemble cast effort. Anthony Trollope's best work is accurately portrayed.

The story follows the 1870's Jewish "financier"  Augustus Melmotte, played with great gusto by David Suchet. He cons and scams an ever larger pyramid of huge deals until he hits on the railway of Mexico, which has all London running to his door to get in on the ground floor. He schemes to marry his daughter Marie to a lord, and he buys a seat in Parliament, while succoring deals every which way. 

His daughter attempts to run away with her infatuation, handsome but worthless Sir Felix Carbury, an impoverished aristo who may not care to quit his card game to make the elopement train. Played by the ever-versatile Shirley Henderson, the love-hungry girl is the daughter of a wealthy Jew one day, the disgraced orphan of a con man the next. London is portrayed as a society where everyone wants in on the Jewish deals but will not marry them or recognise them in public.

Carbury (excellently played by Mathhew McFadyen) has a sister, who has fallen in love with the Wrong Man. Her cousin, a dull dog,  wants to give her the family pile and respectability, but she hankers for Montague(Cillian Murphy).   He's been set up to "scout" the fake railroad. Meanwhile he can't get out from under his pursuing ex-fiancee, a volatile Southern witch played by Miranda Otto(Lord of the Rings). If he tries to marry his English rose she'll pull out the pistols.