Les Misérables: Season 1

"As Daffy Duck said, it's the rich what gets the gravy, and the poor what gets the blame. Les Miserables is a gorgeously conceived means of getting that depressing, eternal truth across."

"It tells the story well enough but rarely gets under the skin of Hugo's mad book - a kind of spiritual potboiler cum encyclopedia that includes lengthy excursions into history, economics, philosophy, retrospective travel writing and religion."

"An engrossing treat, featuring a vibrant cast and taking its time to unspool the melodrama and offer loving looks at 19th century France."

"Victor Hugo wrote one of the longest novels in literature... Thankfully, we viewers do get the narrative through-line in this handsome, passionate, near-heroic adaptation of Hugo's moral fable."

"This new version of "Les Misérables" comes to us in the form of a handsome, sweeping, straightforward series of six episodes."

"Les Miserables represents a substantive commitment and yet still feels hours short of an ideal and full Hugo adaptation."

"C'est magnifique - and there is no chance of Russell Crowe popping up to sing about stars or runaway carts. Merci, Monsieur Davies. Merci."

"Now that the nuts and bolts are in place we can look forward to what promises to be a quality series safe in the knowledge that (apologies to musical fans) every Tom, Dick and Harry won't be bursting into godawful song."

"Davies's script has so far hit the main marks and tripped lightly through a thicket of exposition. Sometimes he has been constrained by threadbare material."