Making extensive use of primary materials, Recchio considers Cranford within the context of the Victorian periodical press, contemporary reviews, theories of text and word relationships in illustrated books, community theater, and digital media. Recchio maps Cranford's nineteenth-century reception in Britain and the United States through illustrated editions in England dating from 1864 and their subsequent re-publication in the United States, US school editions in the first two decades of the twentieth century, dramatic adaptations from 1899 to 2007, and Anglo-American literary criticism in the latter half of the twentieth century. It will compete with Andrew Marr's History of Britain, The Apprentice, Britain's Got Talent, Gavin & Stacey and Strictly Come Dancing in an online public vote.Tracing the publishing history of Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford from its initial 1851-53 serialization in Dickens's Household Words through its numerous editions and adaptations, Thomas Recchio focuses especially on how the text has been deployed to support ideas related to nation and national identity.

Editions of Panorama and Dispatches are up against China's Stolen Children and Honour Kills, the first such nomination for BBC3.Ĭranford is also up for the Sky Plus audience award for programme of the year. The current affairs category, which was dropped last year, has been reinstated. The comedy programme category is also made up of first-time nominees, with The Armstrong & Miller Show and Russell Brand's Ponderland competing with Star Stories and Fonejacker. Unusually, four first nominees made up the list for the best actor prize, including Matthew Macfadyen's tortured portrayal of a paedophile in Secret Life and Andrew Garfield's depiction in Boy A of a 24-year-old released after being imprisoned for killing a child in his youth. In the single drama category, three acclaimed Channel 4 programmes - The Trial of Tony Blair, The Mark of Cain and Boy A - will go up against Coming Down the Mountain, the first attempt at a TV drama by Mark Haddon, author of the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. Dame Judi Dench, who played Miss Matty Jenkyns in the Elizabeth Gaskell adaptation, received her 12th Bafta nomination and will go head to head with her screen sister in Cranford, Eileen Atkins. Gina McKee, who won a Bafta for Our Friends in the North in 1997, was nominated for her performance in The Street. Life on Mars, the time-travelling 1970s police drama, also received another nomination alongside the BBC/HBO epic Rome and Channel 4's teen drama Skins.

After a surprise victory last year, when it beat Life on Mars, it was again nominated in the best drama category. Coronation Street missed out but The Street, Jimmy McGovern's northern kitchen-sink drama for BBC1, gained plaudits.

Cranford author elizabeth