Say what you like, no-one does costume drama like the BBC and from the very first scene of this new adaptation of Jane Eyre, you knew you were in safe hands.  I’m sure purists might baulk at the fact that poor young Jane’s early life, both at home and at Lowood school where her dear friend Helen Burns dies almost as soon as they’ve met, is glossed over within 15 minutes, but in any transition from page to screen something has to go and when grown-up Jane (Ruth Wilson) makes her entrance you’re forced to agree that the rush was worthwhile.

Haddon Hall in Derbyshire is the perfect setting for Thornfield and without exception every facet of this production has been lovingly and carefully attended to.  Costumes, makeup, lighting, props, direction, editing, everyone must have been at the top of their game.  The relationship between Jane and Rochester (Toby Stephens) throbs with sexual tension and yet is allowed to grow and develop at a natural pace through the 45 minutes they’re on screen together.

From their first meeting on the path where he is haughty and dismissive, through their first meeting in the house as master and servant to the final scene by the river and the conversation where he opens up to her about the events in Paris, the pacing was perfect and the acting totally believable.  Wonderful stuff!

Hints of dark events to come were cleverly foreshadowed with the red scarf fluttering from the tower and the echoed nightly murmurings and screams along the dark panelled hallways of Thornfield and the final scene when Jane discovers Rochester’s burning bed gave us a dramatic, if a little predictable, cliffhanger for next week’s second instalment.  If there can be said to be such a thing as a cliffhanger in a 159-year-old story!