Short stories adapted for drama series

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33450, 4 February 1974, Page 4

Short stories adapted for drama series

“Country Matters” is a series of short stories from two masters of the craft, H. E. Bates and A. E. Coppard, which begins this evening. The two writers were contemporaries and in their early writing years they shared the same publisher, where they were both encouraged by the great literary editor. Edward Garnett. Both began writing in the 1920 s and were strongly influenced by a deep feeling for the physical world, for the sounds, scents and colours of the English countryside, its ways and people. The stories are mainly

I concerned with the depiction of characters against a background of English landscape — all are about intense relationships and set in the vanishing rural England. Some of Britain’s bestknown dramatists were involved in adapting the stories for television, including James Saunders, Hugh Leonard, Hugh Whitemore and Jeremy Paul. British critics were lavish in praise of their efforts, the “Guardian” describing the series as “one of the most distinguished drama series television has seen for some time”. “Country Matters” also j won the Prix Italia and two (other awards from the I Society of Film and TeleI vision Awards — one for (the best television drama (series of 1972, and the other | for the best television adaption. “Country Matters” is a Granada Television production.