So far, so good for the ‘good versus evil’ story we’ve seen rather a few times before. Their pitch of misguided, middle class selfishness is delightful to watch you just know it’s not going to end well for them. Julia McKenzie and Michael Gambon are fantastically good.

The council are equally split – who will they go with?

Realising the impact this will have on the wider community, Barry stands up to the Mollisons with a speech that Martin Luther King would have been proud to deliver. Proposing that the local drug rehabilitation centre and food bank be sold off and transformed in to a hotel and spa, council chairman Howard Mollison unveils new plans with glossy brochures and mini models. The boxing ring is the local parish council the fight is profit versus people.Īt a council meeting we are introduced to a swathe of characters good against bad. He’s married to a beautiful, doting wife and they live together in a gorgeous house, although the bathroom mirror that cracks and reflects nightmare images isn’t so picture perfect.īarry is pitted against the Mollisons – a couple nearing retirement who are fighting on the side of the corporation and trying to clean out Pagford of all its ‘undesirables’. Rowling was always going to be an event and we’ve been anticipating Sarah Phelps’ adaptation of The Casual Vacancy with excitement and gusto.Īnd so we delved down the rabbit hole into the quaint English town of Pagford, where not everything was as it seems or as idyllic as we’d be led to believe – picture perfect country cottages from the outside, with a sinister twitch behind the net curtains.īarry is our hero – the local fighter for the rights of the underdogs, the mentor to the abused youths and the emergency get out of jail card for the local drug addicts. Being invited in to a world conjured up by the literary superstar J.K.

The casual vacancy review