A freckled-faced girl with an uncommonly upbeat outlook on life gladdens the hearts of MASTERPIECE THEATRE viewers in an uplifting new adaptation of the children's classic "Pollyanna," airing on PBS Sunday, November 28, 2004. Eleven-year-old Georgina Terry stars as Pollyanna Whittier, an orphan sent to live with her gloomy Aunt Polly, played by Amanda Burton (Forgotten). Also appearing are Kenneth Cranham ("Lady Audley's Secret") as the morose millionaire Mr. Pendleton, Aden Gillett ("The Innocents") as the depressed Dr. Chiltern and Pam Ferris ("Our Mutual Friend") as the shut-in cynic Mrs. Snow. All these grown-ups are stuck in a rut and therefore become ideal - if unwilling - candidates for Pollyanna's Glad Game, a cheery contest to find "something about everything to be glad about." Pollyanna is a past master at finding a silver lining in the most threatening of storms. Rounding out the exceptional cast are Kate Ashfield as Aunt Polly's housemaid, Nancy, and Tom Ellis as Tim the shy chauffeur - a perfect pair for Pollyanna's matchmaking schemes. Simon Nye wrote the script from Eleanor H. Porter's 1913 bestseller. Nye also scripted another MASTERPIECE THEATRE family favorite, "The Railway Children," which the Houston Chronicle deemed "delightful ... impeccably performed ... charming." The same adjectives apply to "Pollyanna," which charts the impish heroine's inauspicious arrival in a veritable Peyton Place of misanthropes (translated from Porter's original New England setting to Britain for this UK production). When Pollyanna is assigned a spartan attic room in her aunt's well-appointed, virtually empty mansion, the girl is glad for its splendid access to a climbing tree. She is similarly glad to happen across Jimmy the homeless orphan (Ben Thornton), since he offers a cause to champion. And she is definitely glad to discover that Aunt Polly once had a lover, since it opens a strategy for warming her very cold heart. But all is not straightforward in Pollyanna's war against pessimism, since she must overcome a personal tragedy that threatens to banish "glad" from her vocabulary forever. With its message of effervescent optimism, Pollyanna was sensationally successful in pre-World War I America, and its heroine's name rubbed off on countless babies, businesses and even a brand of milk. The name also found a place in the dictionary, with a faintly and unfairly pejorative nuance. "Pollyanna: a person regarded as being foolishly or blindly optimistic," says one modern reference work. Not fair! Pollyanna was no fool, as she proves by raising the sick, restoring faith to the troubled, placing Jimmy in a loving home (with a legacy, to boot!), while expunging heartbreaks from the past and uniting two couples in happy marriage. Not bad for a foolish, blind optimist!
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