Oscar nominee Dame Judi Dench is to star in a BBC costume drama based on the novels of Elizabeth Gaskell, it was announced today. She will play Miss Matty Jenkyns in Cranford Chronicles, a new five-part serial for BBC1. Set in 1842, it's based on three Gaskell works woven together - Cranford, Mr Harrison's Confessions and My Lady Ludlow. Dame Judi's character is a once-lively spirit whose hopes were crushed when she was forced as a young woman to give up the man she loved and to live afterwards in the shadow of her elder sister. "I am so excited to be doing Cranford Chronicles. A summer of fun to look forward to!" she said. Gaskell's books are set in the rural Cheshire town of Cranford during the Industrial Revolution. The BBC is billing Cranford Chronicles as a "landmark drama" in the mould of its critically-acclaimed adaptations of Bleak House and Jane Eyre. BBC fiction controller Jane Tranter said: "Cranford Chronicles is a beautifully big and ambitious period drama - just the way we like them. "The logistics of mounting such a production have inevitably taken a while to pull together, but the best things are well worth waiting for, and we are all very excited at the prospect of such a piece and of welcoming Judi Dench back to the BBC." Dame Judi is Oscar-nominated this year for her performance in Notes On A Scandal, alongside Dame Helen Mirren and Kate Winslet.
