![]() ![]() “The Casual Vacancy,” which is set in modern day, has appealingly odd characters (the excellent cast includes Michael Gambon, who played Dumbledore in most of the Harry Potter films) and the adaptation, written by Sarah Phelps with Ms. There are no flying broomsticks or quidditch matches, just teenagers trying to navigate their parents’ stinting, blinkered world. It’s actually closer to a Harry Potter novel, only with just the Muggles and none of the magic, a little like an old-fashioned animated cartoon after the shiny top sheets of cellophane are pulled away. There are mysterious deaths and young adults under the spell of their hormones in idyllic, imaginary Pagford, but “The Casual Vacancy” is not a charming, the-vicar-did-it murder mystery or a “Downton Abbey” romance. In this three-part mini-series, on HBO on Wednesday and Thursday nights, even a lovely old village with a medieval abbey, cobbled streets and flocks of sheep is sordid. Rowling’s novel by the same name, her first outside the Harry Potter books. That’s the yearning stirred by “The Casual Vacancy,” an adaptation of J. ![]()
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