Penny Dreadful

If the ideal cable television show is intended to feature a lavish setting, a top notch cast, adult themes, solid performances and edgy writing, then Penny Dreadful has all that.

It also has the horror card to play.

Be assured it comes with plenty of credentials. Produced by Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Skyfall), this US-UK co-production is created by John Logan (Skyfall, Hugo, The Last Samurai, The Aviator, Gladiator). The cast includes Timothy Dalton, Eva Green, Rory Kinnear, Billie Piper, Josh Hartnett and Helen McCrory and Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona (The Orphanage, The Impossible) directs the first 2 episodes.

Set in London, 1891, this is a gothic fantasy that parachutes some of literature’s darkest characters into one rich setting. Vampires, Frankenstein, Egyptian history and even Dorian Gray. With the spectre of Jack the Ripper hanging over them, these may not have all met at the crossroads on paper, but here we are prepared to suspend disbelief for the sake of a good scare.

The title is a nod to gothic publications that could once be bought for a mere penny. Not anymore.

At the centre of the story is explorer Sir Malcolm Murray (Dalton) whose daughter Mina has been abducted by the underworld. Together with the clairvoyant Vanessa Ives (Green) they hire American sharpshooter Ethan Chandler (Harnett) to kill a den of vampires. Murray is desperate to find his daughter, prepared to “kill all the world” to rescue her (words like that would get one arrested these days).

Murray and the enigmatic Vanessa piece together horrific clues, including hieroglyphics etched underneath the skin of a corpse -eww. It takes young surgeon Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) and eccentric Egyptologist Ferdinand Lyle (Simon Russell Beale) to decipher its haunting messages. Chandler, visiting the UK with a travelling sideshow, is the outsider stepping into this bizarre world, and befriending Irish immigrant, Bronagh Croft (Billie Piper).

While this is clearly a costume drama, there are scenes of bloody battles, apparitions, spiders, eroticism, seances, and all kinds of psychosexual twists. Thankfully the sum of the parts is underpinned by some poetic, elegant dialogue -Treadaway and Dalton get the best of it- and character drama. There is also nudity and profanity, suggesting this is a show that knows its audience.

Dalton and Green are at times magnetic with their dark performances, both individually and as a duo.

Exploring the worlds between the living and the the afterlife, this is a theatrical, sometimes harrowing, ride on the ghost train.

It’s hard not to be reminded of American Horror Story here, with Ryan Murphy’s anthology series arguably laying a lot of groundwork for the genre to return to popularity. Penny Dreadful is underpinned more by its ensemble than a star vehicle, but there’s no need to choose which child to love more. Enjoy them both.

Foxtel has taken far too long to bring this to screen (it premiered in the US in May), but thankfully there are thrills and chills for those who have been more than patient.

Penny Dreadful 7:30pm Thursday on Showcase