Search - Charles Dickens' London - Part 1 - Life on DVD

Not worth the money

Classic Trek Fan | Hagerstown, MD United States | 07/15/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Sorry folks, but I was bored to distraction. The narrator should have been OFF camera much, much, much more than he was. When on camera he swallowed about half of the picture. Several areas had VERY noisy, annoying backgrounds. Many places he took us to were only the site where a building USED to be. There's something else there now. Also very poorly done. One example: He said he would take us to the church where Dickens' parents were married, but we never see it. The docu starts out at the Dickens' Museum. We see the outside, but he never takes us inside. All in all, I paid too much for this DVD. If Amazon would take returns simply because of 'customer dislike', I'd send it back in a second."

Dreadful

Susannah | Hanover, NH | 12/07/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"This is close to the poorest excuse for a documentary that I've ever seen. The supposed "highlights" include "tours of the Houses of Parliament" - a tour which consists of the narrator standing across the river with the Houses of Parliament off at a distance, seen dimly over his shoulder (the camera consistently shows us a detailed view up his nostrils and very little else) while he attempts to shout over the appalling din of London traffic. Insides of the buildings are almost never shown, and in some cases we're treated to a pointless view of the spot where a building associated with Dickens used to be - before being torn down. Instead of panning the camera up and down the street to show us neighborhoods, it remains fixed throughout on the sweating face of the narrator who seems always to be desperately out of breath, as if he'd run all the way there from the last location. The noise of London is so intense that one grows increasingly afraid he'll give himself a stroke trying to shout over it. Why on earth would the producers of this mess think we'd rather look at the rumpled narrator than the buildings whose view he is completely blocking? Did they really not notice that he took up three quarters of the screen most of the time? I'm just sorry I had to give it one star, as Amazon doesn't offer none as an option."

Charles Dickens' London Part 1 - Life

G. Fisher | Nashville TN USA | 03/28/2010

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Wonderful idea presented by an informed scholar.The portrayal of London at the time of Dickens is as well illustrated and I looked

forward to Parts 2 and 3. However, had I known that the successive CDs would have been a repetition of part I would not

have bought them. I had to conclude that the all 3 were some form of cut and paste jobs and highlighted the laziness of the host -

Tony Williams.

The comments may be applied to parts 2 and 3 .


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