Noble, sumptuous production

Press, 2 March 1984, Page 13

Noble, sumptuous production

[Review]

kon Strongman

Sunday evenings have returned to culturally satisfying normality. Good old Auntie Beeb has given us another delightful production. For its first episode, “Barchester Chronicles” was very nearly perfect. Everything was exactly right, from The Warden’s pebble glasses through the muted, soft, hazy colours to the rich and penetrating language.

Donald Pleasance as the Warden has a marvellously gentle manner, moving through Barchester like a lazy bumble bee. But he does not really bumble, brilliantly conveying a hesitant intelligence with a brief half smile. It is totally beguiling to see him unwittingly relieving his frustration by playing an imaginery cello as he speaks.

The ideally cast counterpart of Donald Pleasance is Nigel Hawthorne as Ar-

chedeacon Grantly. It took only a few minutes to stop expecting him to drawl "yes, Minister” and then one could just sit back and watch the beginning of an acting tour de force. It is impossible to imagine a better portrayal of irascibility. He fumes and steams like a boiler about to burst and spits out his consonants like rivets.

This role could stamp Nigel Hawthorne as one of the great television actors. He plays a conservative bully, Shouting at one and all, hectoring with heated intelligence. On Sunday last,

he rang a handbell with a supremely controlled viciousness. Those few seconds contained better acting than have other entire series. The other, lesser, characters in “Barchester Chronicles” are nearly as good as the Warden and the Archdeacon, from the mild, ineffable, Cyril Luckham as the Bishop who can see nothing but good in everyone, to the Warden’s daughter, Eleanor (Janet Maw), who has a smile that could not be bettered for a period play. In a modern piece, its upturned genuine lack of cynicism would appear hopelessly old fashioned.

The men of the hospital are a lovely set of blackclothed, white-bearded old dodderers. In their various ways, they are the ideal recipients of the Archdeacon’s harangues — which forces one, yet again, to mention Nigel Hawthorne’s

superlative performance. So much does he seem to be enjoying the part, so caught up is he in it, that he drags the viewer by the scruff of the neck and compels total absorption. The whole of “Barchester Chronicles,” just from one episode, left one feeling completely satisfied and yet keenly anticipating the six hours which are still to come. Also, it left one ach-

ing with a sort of nostalgia compounded with envy for a world of noble proportions. The buildings, the characters, the life and the charming intricacies of what they all do to each other are in perfect proportion.

There is nothing mean about either Trollope’s masterly writing or this splendid production. Watching for an hour is like sitting down, famished, to one’s favourite meal, finding that it has been superbly cooked and, magically, that one can eat more than usual.

The scandals of Barchester are genuinely sumptuous. One is consumed by another world. As far as I am concerned, a world that has three-way conversations between the puzzled Bishop, the seething Archdeacon and the wittily gentle Warden can fill Sunday evenings for ever.