Florence Nightingale (2008 film)

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Florence Nightingale is a 60-minute 2008 BBC One television drama on the early years of Florence Nightingale, from 1837 to the Royal Commission into the Crimean War. Nightingale was played by Laura Fraser, and her father by Michael Pennington. It was first broadcast on Sunday 1 June 2008.

Contents

Cast

Crew

Filming locations

Reception

John Lloyd of the Financial Times found that the most emotionally powerful segment of the show was the scene where her father told her "God is in charge, not you" when she agonised over her shortcomings in Crimea. He called it "moving and powerful". Lloyd thought that the show's remainder was "uneven but in a good way". [1] In a negative review, The Daily Telegraph 's Stephen Pile wrote that the programme "was flagged up as a big revisionist drama showing the real Flo, but there was little in this entire 60 minutes that was not described with infinitely more wit, style and detail by Lytton Strachey in Eminent Victorians as long ago as 1918". [2] Aidan Smith of The Scotsman said Laura Fraser, who played Nightingale, "deliver[ed] her lines with gusto". [3] The Times 's journalist Stuart Wavell called the programme "remarkable not only for its poignancy but also for the new light it sheds on a national icon". [4]

In a negative review, The Independent columnist Tom Sutcliffe wrote that it "a bit more lively than the usual church pamphlet" and "it fell down in not drawing a sharp-enough distinction between the music-hall simplifications of its song-and-dance numbers and the notionally more realistic scenes of the drama". [5] David Belcher of The Herald penned a positive review, stating, "Writer-director Norman Stone certainly had his work cut out in crafting an arresting modern-day depiction of the nursing heroine of the Crimean war. That he largely succeeded was owing to his diligence in trawling Nightingale's own writings." [6]

References

  1. ↑ Lloyd, John (7 June 2008). "When culture shows God's departure". Financial Times . ProQuest   250111055 . Retrieved 24 November 2025.
  2. ↑ Pile, Stephen (7 June 2008). "Some new British obsessions". The Daily Telegraph . Archived from the original on 2 November 2009. Retrieved 24 November 2025.
  3. ↑ Smith, Aidan (8 June 2008). "On The Box: Florence Nightingale, BBC1". The Scotsman . Archived from the original on 24 November 2025. Retrieved 24 November 2025.
  4. ↑ Wavell, Stuart (1 June 2008). "BBC drama about Florence Nightingale sparks controversy: Errors by Florence Nightingale killed thousands of troops in the Crimea, says a new BBC drama. But the film has started its own war, with a historian claiming his work has been stolen". The Times . Archived from the original on 24 November 2025. Retrieved 24 November 2025.
  5. ↑ Sutcliffe, Tom (1 June 2008). "The Weekend's TV: Florence Nightingale Sun, BBC1. Tony Robinson's Crime and Punishment, Sun, Channel 4". The Independent . Archived from the original on 12 July 2025. Retrieved 24 November 2025.
  6. ↑ Belcher, David (2 June 2008). "Nightingale sings a different tune". The Herald . Archived from the original on 24 November 2025. Retrieved 24 November 2025.


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