The Ruby in the Smoke TV movie

The TV movie of Philip Pullman's The Ruby in the Smoke aired last night and I watched it this afternoon. Billie Piper was quite good as Sally Lockhart, and Julie Walters was astonishingly wicked as Mrs Holland ! It's now 6 years since I read the Sally Lockhart quartet - they were the first of Philip's books that I read - and I've never got around to re-reading them, but I feel inclined to as a result of seeing the TV movie (which can only be a good thing !) Of course, the fact that I've not read them recently means that I didn't spend the entire 95 minutes nit-piicking about what they'd changed, left out or added - something I'm generally inclined to do with adaptations of books (which is one reason I deliberately haven't re-read Terry Pratchett's Hogfather lately). The BBC did a good job of the Victorian settings, as might be expected from the champions of period drama, especially the scenes in the opium den. If you're wondering whether to watch this when it comes your way, then my advice is do watch it and enjoy it, as I did.