The Canterville Ghost

I followed James Lance here bc he was so terrific as Trent Crimm and this seemed like an oddly similar premise, only with Lasso, they hired Americans for American roles and Brits for British roles - and with this show, no such effort was made - and it shows. The script must have been written by a child and the third grader's friends are the producers, but the idea is cute and it's sweet that they're going for Americans inspire Brits Part II. Still, sadly, even the wonderful Anthony Head is AWFUL here. The only value in this show is unintentional humor, but....a laugh's a laugh. Unless this was produced for a British Nickolodeon type of channel for elementary school viewers, this one's a pass.

The title of this review is a line from the series uttered by Jeff rawle's character, 'Bluey', the Duke of Stilton.

It pretty much sums up this series, as it was, in fact, tripe.

It's a shame, really, as we were looking forward to this, but suffered through about 25 minutes of this garbage before switching off.

Aside from the appalling American accents, the main protagonists were painfully bad and the whole thing played to the US myth that all Brits live in stately homes (or Romany Gypsy caravans?!). Some of the better-known cast members (Hadyn Gwynne, Jeff Rawle, Anthony Head & Jonty Stephens) should have known better and avoided this travesty. And it's for them that I gave it three stars. All of the cast below 30 need acting lessons.

Firstly it's hilarious the featured review mocks the father's terrible wig. Which is in fact the actor's real hair... That said the American accents are indeed terrible, the twins acting is insufferable, the CGI and greenscreen has been done as cheaply as possible and it shows. There's even a talking rat for goodness sakes! It's entirely populated with clichés - cod Shakespearean dialogue, upper class twits, optimistic can do Yanks, picturesque Romany caravans and castles... Unless you're watching with kids I'd definitely skip this bad adaptation.

In the UK this was shown as 2 feature length episodes which made it drag somewhat. I imagine 4 bitesize episodes made it more palatable for the US market.

It was commissioned by BYU from the BBC. So its rating is for kids of all ages. If your'e a fan of British Television there are many familiar faces in this 4 episode miniseries. The Executive Producer & Writer also worked on 2 of my favorite British cozy mysteries: Father Brown and Shakespeare & Hathaway. Once I got past the fake American accents of James Lance & Carolyn Catz who play the parents, I enjoyed how the mystery unfolded. I liked seeing the gothic mansion & british countryside etc. It was filmed in UK. Available on the BYU Tv. Im watching their free app on my Roku device and there have been no ads.

Right from the start you know they didn't have much money to spend on this production.

There is a 'horse riding' scene that looks like something from a 1930s comedy.

The father is wearing a wig straight out of the dressing up box, yet the show won an Emmy for outstanding makeup and hairstyling!

The mother has an 'American' accent that changes often, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. I expect more from Caroline Katz even if the budget didn't include money for a voice coach. We will never be able to mock Dick van Dyke's 'cockney' accent again!

BYUtv part funded this so it will have been shown in America, I assume it was re-dubbed.

On the plus side Lizzy Connelly has fun playing 'Moppy' Stilton, her description of her 'charity' work in Africa is hilarious and maybe rather too close to the truth.

Overall it passed the time and the whole family can watch it but it should have been much better.