These surely must be some of the fastest-moving 98 minutes in the history of the adaptation of Dickens's works for stage and screen. Despite the fine atmosphere engendered by filming on location in Rochester, much of the action seems excessively compressed and transition between scenes is, at best, abrupt, and at worst disconcerting, suggesting that Timothy Forder in writing the screenplay anticipated that his television audience would largely be composed on people who had already read the novel.

Bazzard, Grewgious's (Glyn Houston) confidant and assistant, Miss Twinkleton (Gemma Craven), and Luke Honeythunder (Marc Sinden) are all much reduced in importance. Notably absent from the action are Tartar and his man, Lobley, and the mysterious Dick Datchery that the 1935 production had utilized so effectively to wrap up the mystery. Thus, a Crisparkle (Peter Pacey) who very much resembles the muscular and affable clergyman of the novel must be the one who brings the villainous John Jasper to justice, but not until after the duplicitous drug-addict has strangled his pusher. As in the Charles Dickens, Jr., dramatic adaptation of 1880, jealous Jasper (Robert Powell), regarding handsome Neville Landless (Rupert Rainsford) as yet another inconvenient barrier to Rosa's (Finty Williams) affections, strangles him, leaving him for dead, having attempted to make the deed look like a suicide. There is, in essence, little "mystery" about the fate of Edwin Drood (Jonathan Phillips) in this film, since he dies at the hands of his uncle, whom we last glimpse in the condemned cell, strangely bemused by his capture, smiling to himself in a deranged manner, just as Charles Dickens probably intended. Period costume and authentic setting compensate somewhat for the disjointed narrative and the slowly built up suspense, but, despite a solid performance from Michelle Evans as Helena Landless, she hardly seems the striking Eurasian beauty of Dickens's novel. Equally problematic is the casting of Nanette Newman as Mrs. Crisparkle, since she looks more like Septimus's wife or sister than his mother, and is not given sufficient opportunity to play the crotchety character of the novel. On the other hand, Glyn Houston is a convincing and sympathetic Grewgious (much resembling the character as depicted in Fildes' original 1870 illustrations); Freddie Jones realizes precisely the blustering, self-centred, complacent, xenophobic bourgeois man of business, Mayor Sapsea; and Leonard Kirby is a nice blend of the humorous and obnoxious in his impersonation of Durdles' assistant, the street urchin Deputy.

Adding to what are admittedly quibbles about casting is the script's emphasis on the relationship between Rosa (first seen singing in the cathedral congregation at the opening) and John Jasper at the expense of the characterization of Edwin Drood, who remains a cipher rather than develops into a character with whom we can sympathize even as we object to some of his sentiments and manners. Jasper confides in Edwin early on that he has been taking opium "for the pain," but the script fails to clarify the source of the pain, other than a certain ennui at his limited position in life and his chafing against his vocation. The young ladies at Miss Twinkleton's are suitably giddy, the most jejeune of all initially being Rosa Bud. There are so innovative touches that make watching the film worthwhile, including the film's bringing to life, as it were, many of the original plates from the novel: for example, the scene between Edwin and Rosa which illustrator Luke Fildes entitled "Under the Trees" is punctuated by Jasper's singing, which unaccountably upsets Rosa. He further disconcerts her during the music recital depicted in Fildes' "At the Piano" with his Svengali-like, obsessive gaze as she tries to get through her rendition of what becomes her signature acapella song from Sir Walter Scott's (1802) Ministrelsey of the Scottish Border (not mentioned in the novel), the plaintiff ballad "Annan Water." — Philip V. Allingham