Dandelion Dead
This is a dramatisation of the true story of Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong, a solicitor and magistrate's clerk who lived in the small Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye. In 1921 he was arrested and charged with poisoning his domineering wife, Catherine, and later attempting to poison a business rival, Oswald Martin, by administering arsenic to them. At his trial, Armstrong claimed that he had bought the arsenic simply to kill the dandelions on his lawn. However he was convicted of murder and executed in 1922.
Production
Production
Seasons
Cast
Peter Vaughan
Dr. Hinks
Lesley Sharp
Constance 'Connie' Martin, nee Davies
Diana Quick
Marion Glassford-Gale
Michael Kitchen
Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong
David Thewlis
Oswald Martin
Sarah Miles
Catherine Armstrong
Robert Stephens
Henry Vaughan
Roger Lloyd Pack
Phillips
Patrick Godfrey
Griffiths
Paul Brooke
Arthur
Amanda Walker
Bessie
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Reviews
Peter McGinn
This mini-series won the prestigious British BAFTA award, but the reason I watched it was because Michael Kitchen and Lesley Sharp are in it, two performers I have always enjoyed watching in action. Kitchen does an excellent job with a complex character portrayal, and Ms. Sharp also excels in a supporting role that serves to give more depth to the story.
The plot is based on actual events and after reading about it, I feel they stuck pretty close to what happened, throwing in some extra details to make it more interesting, such as the Lesley Sharp character’s subplot mentioned above. One of my concerns going into it was that they would spend too much time reporting his trial, but that wasn’t the case.
The movie left me wondering what happened with his children, but the small amount of research I did didn’t reveal anything, so I guess it would have been pure speculation or fiction if they had dealt with it.
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