Quacks (2017): a review
Sep. 4th, 2019 07:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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victorian221bI’ve started an online course The Living Picture Craze: An Introduction to Victorian Film which has recently begun and which smallhobbit recommended back in May. The course is fun and very informative! If you’re interested in the early days of motion picture, especially in Britain, and would like to know more about its pioneers and what kind of experience it was for the audience at the turn of the century one hundred years ago, please sign up by all means, it’s free.
While the course introduces numerous authentic clips from over a century ago, it also mentions a 2017 TV series called Quacks. The show was produced by BBC2 and portrays life of doctors in 1840s, the age of rapid development of medicine, when the antiseptic principle and anaesthesia were brand new steps not yet accepted universally. It is also the time when Holmes and Watson’s parents would have been young. Another decade, and the doctor and the detective would be born.
There are only 6 episodes, 30 minutes each. The acting and the humour are superb. It’s a black comedy, and since it features a surgeon in the first half of the 19th century, it’s sometimes gory, so a fair warning about that. I enjoyed the way Victorians are depicted as living and breathing people with flaws, not stereotypical paragons of decorum. There’s satire of patriarchic ways of the period, when women were not allowed to study and pursue careers, their lot being housekeeping (reminded me of reading The Victorian House by Judith Flanders and How To Be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman earlier discussed here). There’s poking fun at the infamous Victorian casual recreational drug use. There’s duality of Victorian mores, with brothels and getting all hot and bothered just by a single touch of hand to hand. There are so many more aspects which will surely ring the bell for everyone fascinated by the 19th century.
There are four main characters: Robert Lessing, a surgeon who often basically butchers people, wearing his bloody apron, watched by the gasping audience in the anatomy theatre. His wife Caroline studies medicine surreptitiously while hanging out with his friends, John Sutton (a dentist, a dabbling anaesthesiologist, and a drug addict) and William Agar (a soft-spoken psychologist or alienist who, despite his best efforts, hasn’t cured a single patient yet). And here is possibly a Holmesian connection? I wonder if William’s surname is a reference to Dr. Moore Agar from DEVI.
Also, Rupert Everett is delightful in a supporting role of Dr. Hendrick, Lessing’s boss.
This scene from episode 1, of Dr. Agar trying out phrenology methods on Caroline, reminded me of HOUN and Dr. Mortimer who wished to “run his finger along Holmes’s parietal fissure”. Btw, Dr. Agar gets aroused after that session, so keep your hands to yourself, Mortimer!
Episode 2 features Charles Dickens, who’s quite full of himself. Andrew Scott’s performance is marvellous. There is something of Moriarty’s eeriness in the way Dickens demands from his guests to list their favourite characters from his novels.
Another guest star in episode 2 is Milly Thomas playing Florence Nightingale. It’s hilarious how Miss Nightingale tries to make Lessing clean his instruments after surgeries and discard his bloodstained apron, and how the disgruntled Lessing deals with her “meddling”.
Episode 3 starts with Lessing assembling a model of a ship.
Doesn’t it look familiar? (Thanks to granada-brett-crumbs on tumblr who helped me to identify which Granada episode it was). Apparently, Lessing and Watson share a hobby.
It won’t do to give away all fun moments, so I’ll stop at this one, when Caroline dresses up as a man to visit a medical lecture, then has a row with her husband, then they make up and are taken for “unholy Uranites”.
I had such a great time watching this show, and it’s a shame it was cancelled. On the other hand, it would have been a double shame if season 2 went downhill, so who knows. The show also reminded me ofluthienberen’s review of The Butchering Art. The book is on my to read list, and I hope to get to it until the end of the year.
smallhobbit recommended back in May. The course is fun and very informative! If you’re interested in the early days of motion picture, especially in Britain, and would like to know more about its pioneers and what kind of experience it was for the audience at the turn of the century one hundred years ago, please sign up by all means, it’s free. While the course introduces numerous authentic clips from over a century ago, it also mentions a 2017 TV series called Quacks. The show was produced by BBC2 and portrays life of doctors in 1840s, the age of rapid development of medicine, when the antiseptic principle and anaesthesia were brand new steps not yet accepted universally. It is also the time when Holmes and Watson’s parents would have been young. Another decade, and the doctor and the detective would be born.
There are only 6 episodes, 30 minutes each. The acting and the humour are superb. It’s a black comedy, and since it features a surgeon in the first half of the 19th century, it’s sometimes gory, so a fair warning about that. I enjoyed the way Victorians are depicted as living and breathing people with flaws, not stereotypical paragons of decorum. There’s satire of patriarchic ways of the period, when women were not allowed to study and pursue careers, their lot being housekeeping (reminded me of reading The Victorian House by Judith Flanders and How To Be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman earlier discussed here). There’s poking fun at the infamous Victorian casual recreational drug use. There’s duality of Victorian mores, with brothels and getting all hot and bothered just by a single touch of hand to hand. There are so many more aspects which will surely ring the bell for everyone fascinated by the 19th century.
There are four main characters: Robert Lessing, a surgeon who often basically butchers people, wearing his bloody apron, watched by the gasping audience in the anatomy theatre. His wife Caroline studies medicine surreptitiously while hanging out with his friends, John Sutton (a dentist, a dabbling anaesthesiologist, and a drug addict) and William Agar (a soft-spoken psychologist or alienist who, despite his best efforts, hasn’t cured a single patient yet). And here is possibly a Holmesian connection? I wonder if William’s surname is a reference to Dr. Moore Agar from DEVI.
Also, Rupert Everett is delightful in a supporting role of Dr. Hendrick, Lessing’s boss.
This scene from episode 1, of Dr. Agar trying out phrenology methods on Caroline, reminded me of HOUN and Dr. Mortimer who wished to “run his finger along Holmes’s parietal fissure”. Btw, Dr. Agar gets aroused after that session, so keep your hands to yourself, Mortimer!
Episode 2 features Charles Dickens, who’s quite full of himself. Andrew Scott’s performance is marvellous. There is something of Moriarty’s eeriness in the way Dickens demands from his guests to list their favourite characters from his novels.
Another guest star in episode 2 is Milly Thomas playing Florence Nightingale. It’s hilarious how Miss Nightingale tries to make Lessing clean his instruments after surgeries and discard his bloodstained apron, and how the disgruntled Lessing deals with her “meddling”.
Episode 3 starts with Lessing assembling a model of a ship.
Doesn’t it look familiar? (Thanks to granada-brett-crumbs on tumblr who helped me to identify which Granada episode it was). Apparently, Lessing and Watson share a hobby.
It won’t do to give away all fun moments, so I’ll stop at this one, when Caroline dresses up as a man to visit a medical lecture, then has a row with her husband, then they make up and are taken for “unholy Uranites”.
I had such a great time watching this show, and it’s a shame it was cancelled. On the other hand, it would have been a double shame if season 2 went downhill, so who knows. The show also reminded me of
luthienberen’s review of The Butchering Art. The book is on my to read list, and I hope to get to it until the end of the year. 
no subject
Date: 2019-09-04 08:34 pm (UTC)Our Hospitality ficlet with a glimpse at Holmes's local Edwardian cinema
I generally can't stomach gore, so Quacks is probably not quite my cup of tea, but I'm delighted it's so sharp and full of interesting history!
no subject
Date: 2019-09-05 04:15 am (UTC)If you have time, I do recommend the online course. It can be done at your own pace and has a lot of interesting information which could also give a few fic ideas :D
no subject
Date: 2019-09-05 08:59 pm (UTC)Conveniently, both Our Hospitality and Sherlock Jr are available on YouTube, if you ever have time and want to check them out :)
no subject
Date: 2019-09-06 12:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-06 07:09 pm (UTC)The nod to Ruth Goodman's work is a pleasure to know; a show that depicts the social home lives of women is appreciated!
This definitely evokes a feeling of the changing world then.
I am intrigued by the characters and everything you have remarked upon makes me want to watch it. I do love that picture of husband & wife being caught!
Plus Burke!Watson's ship! Holmesian connections everywhere! =^_^=
no subject
Date: 2019-09-07 03:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-07 11:18 am (UTC)