There are more dramas that speak of the woman named Ann and co-exist in a difficult period in her life in 1832 in Halifax - the cradle of the Industrial Revolution. This dramatic series offers a different look at Anne Leicester's home relationships with her family, her servants, her tenants, and her industrial opponents in general, who will use any dirty tricks they can drop. Now, Ann is trying to co-exist at the heart of her relationship with everyone so that she can complete her career in her life.
Watch [Gentleman Jack] for Jones' forceful, vivacious, smart-as-hell portrayal of a defiant iconoclast who chose to value her own integrity over whatever it was society needed her to value.
At first blush, this eight-episode series may look more PBS than HBO, but the second blush is a doozy -- and it would probably send "Masterpiece" pledge-drivers straight to the fainting couch.
Between Wainwright's crisp, fair-minded scripts and star Suranne Jones' flawless performance, it's tempting to believe that Anne Lister was the most fascinating person of the 19th century...
On the whole, though, the deliberately clashing elements of Gentleman Jack are the things that make it work. They successfully communicate just how unusual Lister was and how adamantly she insisted on being herself.
Gentleman Jack treads a meandering line-sometimes satisfying but often frustrating, a character study whose central figure remains opaque despite her grand illustration.
It's disappointing to see the show back off potentially rich opportunities to translate Anne's interiority, which inspired the entire series after all, to the screen.
Lively, tongue-in-cheek at times and enormously playful, Gentleman Jack is an utter gem of British drama. You can't take your eyes off the central character, and you're drawn into her world and her heart with exquisite ease.
