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Carnival Row review – Orlando Bloom has it away with the fairies

Clanging parables abound as an Irish-accented Cara Delevingne ferries migrants to a Dickensian wonderland in Amazon Prime’s spectacularly silly fantasy tale

Isn’t life grand?! There you can be, all mopey about Brexit and Trump and the Amazon burning, then along comes something like Carnival Row and cheers you right up! First there’s some portentous, pre-credit scrolling text to give us the set-up for this steampunk fairytale: “For ages the homeland of the Fae was a place of myth and legend. Until the many empires of man arrived and warred for control of its riches …” It goes on for a supremely confident length of time. The short version is that the Burgue and the Pact were at war in Fairyland but seven years ago the Burgue withdrew, leaving the Fae to their enemy’s tender mercies. It only gets better – or worse – from here.

Related: ‘A steampunk fever dream’: why Carnival Row is not the new Game of Thrones

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