It's not often I have to reach for the 'off' button but that was the case with THE MALLENS, an early Catherine Cookson adaptation which has dated so badly it's completely unwatchable.The main problem with this show is the lack of quality.
I tracked down this mini-series solely because I wanted to see other work by John Duttine, who was so outstanding in "To Serve Them All My Days." Based on the little I knew about "The Mallens," I wasn't expecting much, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that it held the melodrama in check and featured very fine acting.
This series based on one of Catherine Cookson's many novels, has all the elements of a classic period drama; the village squire's sordid trysts in a barn, complex love triangles, and heaving bosoms.
'The Mallens' was originally transmitted as two films and has since been reissued on DVD as four separate instalments - The Mallen Streak, The Mallen Girls; The Mallen Secret, The Mallen Curse. Based on Catherine Cookson's trilogy of novels, it was not liked by its author and prevented other adaptations being made of her work for many years.
