With a title from an era popular song, and the generally favorable reviews, we expected this mini-series to be a typically entertaining British costume period piece. At first, it looked like it might be so, with the lead characters oddly bursting into lip-syncing some of the best tunes that came out of the 20s and 30s. But it was clear that the series was destined to irritate, annoy, and bore. Not only by the poor acting and script in between the musical interludes, satirically coupling the sordid adventures of an ineffectual sheet-music salesman and the other uninteresting people he encounters. In the first episode (the only one we could bear to watch, and even that we could not completely finish) one of the major characters is a stuttering epileptic street musician. We are treated to an entire seizure by this pathetic person, painful enough to witness in real life, but with as much entertainment value as an extended heart attack. Another notable scene is the salesman's simulated sex with a dowdy prostitute in an automobile. If this and more of same sounds interesting, "Pennies From Heaven" might be worth a few pennies from you. And that is all it could possibly be worth.
However, the lip-sync musical interludes, sometimes with imaginative choreography and close attention to era detail, were very well done, and kept us watching long after we lost interest in the story itself. This could be made into a truly entertaining show by editing out the prosaic perversity in between. Sort of an extended retro MTV. That is the only reason we would not give it a worse rating than we have.
However, the lip-sync musical interludes, sometimes with imaginative choreography and close attention to era detail, were very well done, and kept us watching long after we lost interest in the story itself. This could be made into a truly entertaining show by editing out the prosaic perversity in between. Sort of an extended retro MTV. That is the only reason we would not give it a worse rating than we have.