Princess Puffer on-screen

Just a quick follow up to my post recently on the BBC’s new adaptation of The Mystery of Edwin Drood (if that’s what it was seeing as they supplied an ending to Dicken’s unfinished last novel – so part adaptation, part original – and none the worse for that). I noted in that post (here) that word had reached me from the UK TV watching masses that the opening East End opium den scene was included. Finally, thanks to the magic of iTunes (no, I didn’t do those pirates at Youku or the DVD pirate palace up the road here in Shanghai), I got to see the programme and there is a pretty grubby den – nice. Even better Princess Puffer, the den’s madam and based on a Limehouse opium den madam called Opium Sal that Dickens had met, features quite a lot. And very good she is too – nicely spaced out and shabbily rotten. Princess Puffer’s played by Ellie Haddington, an actress who pops up on TV all the time (most recently in the excellent, and for my money modern Gothic, Luther on the BBC). Rather annoyingly, I can’t find a picture of her from Edwin Drood as Princess Puffer, so you’ll have to make do with an old cover of Drood I came across.