Bleak House is a BBC television drama first broadcast in 1985. The serial was adapted by Arthur Hopcraft from the Charles Dickens novel Bleak House (1853). The series was the second adaptation of Bleak House by the BBC (the first being in 1959). It ran for eight episodes and starred Diana Rigg as Lady Dedlock, with Denholm Elliott in the role of John Jarndyce. In the United States, the series ran under the Masterpiece Theatre series umbrella. A notable plot omission in this version is the story of Caddy Jellyby and the Turveydrop family. As opposed to the standard of videotape for studio-based scenes and film for location-based scenes, the series was shot entirely on 16 mm colour film.

Cast