Martin Carr reviews the series premiere of Carnival Row…
With the quarrelling politicians, warring unionists and class wars raging this feels like two latter day Scorsese films melded with an Alan Moore benchmark and touches of Tolkien. Carnival Row evokes Victorian London, back street bar fights and unsavoury elements in the dark. There is world building going on from minute one with various ethnic factions, methods of class distinction and a sense of scale which makes things feel grandiose. Neither a murder mystery nor straight up thriller you are given the briefest indication of historical context, before being swathed in polished production design and bombarded by stereotypes.
Orlando Bloom, Cara Delevingne and Jared Harris headline this sprawling Victorian serial which is distracted by its desire to lay ground work. In an opening hour which sees us bear witness to shipwrecks, faery folk flaunting their wares and more than the occasional fornication you feel the urge to take notes. People of apparent importance are given a scene to establish themselves before we are whipped off somewhere else as more foundations are laid and period pomp shown off. Amazon are clearly pleased with themselves and the money which has been spent on creating this from scratch means Carnival Row reeks of authenticity. Unfortunately what the show lacks right now is a tangible storyline.
What Amazon are attempting to do is create a huge melting pot of characters whilst incorporating debates around immigration, politics and class. Gangs of New York or The Age of Innocence tackled these topics and used an equally large canvas, yet those did so with commendable finesse. Carnival Row feels like a graphic novel adaptation of note with cinematic pretensions. Right now the issues being explored are cloaking a storyline with no substance and a production design which is hiding that fact. Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne are working hard to breathe life into this Victorian setting, but their star crossed lovers quarrel will not work for long unless a formidable threat materialises.
Roof top pursuits, dingy bar room deductions and four letter F bombs might do for window dressing but sooner or later Carnival Row needs to up the ante. This might be the opening episode littered with visual exposition and equal amounts of screen time for our headliners, but lifting the Ripper from elsewhere only to disappoint is sacrilege. With historical touchstones self-evident there is clearly a tangible intellect behind its creation, yet Carnival Row is more wrapped up in showing us what it can do rather than choosing to entertain the audience.
Martin Carr
