Nice people, nice home ... how do they split nicely?

Press, 30 July 1986, Page 18

Nice people, nice home ... how do they split nicely?

Two top English actors star in a new, six-part 8.8. C. comedy series, “Leaving,” beginning on One at 8.30 p.m. Susan Hampshire and Keith Barron are Martha and Daniel Ford, two people who have been married to each other for most of their adult lives. They are nice people, with nice children and a nice home. Their only problem is that they want to leave each other ... nicely.

Daniel and Martha soon discover that leaving is not as easy as they thought. Other people, for instance, are also affected by the situation. In the first episode their two grown-up children return home to try to persuade them to save their marriage.

The comedy does have its serious moments (it is about suffering and the influence people have on each other), but it also manages to extract humour from frightening

situations, and broaches the problems of divorce in an amusing way.

Forty-four-old Susan Hampshire first came to New Zealand viewers’ attention back in the early days of television when she starred in “The Forsyte Saga.”

“The Pallisers” in 1975 brought her back into the public eye and more recently, “The Barchester Chronicles.” In all, she has appeared in more than 50 plays and 30 films during her acting career. Fifty-year-old Keith Barron is a familiar face from other British series such as “A Family At War,” “Telford’s Change,” and the comedy, “Duty Free.”

Another familiar face in the, series is Gary Cady who plays their son Matthew. Cady starred as Matthew Fairchild, the beautiful, blond, politi-cally-sound son in “Brass.”

“Leaving” is Susan Hampshire’s first venture in situation comedy al-

though- she does not really see it as.that

“Carla Lane (the writer) has described it as ’situation tragedy’ and I know what she means. It is funny, but it’s very moving too, more like a play than the average situation comedy.” Hampshire was attracted to the part by the quality of the writing and the honesty of Martha’s situation.

“She is typical of a lot of women, I think. They need to be fed a lot of romance and when they think they aren’t getting it any more, they throw the baby out with the bathwater.

“There are times in your life when you may say to your partner ‘Perhaps we should part,’ but the last thing you expect is for the guy to go. You expect him to say ‘Well, why? What’s the matter? Can’t we work this out?’

“Here, Martha opens this whole can of worms and, of course, it’s imposslble to get them all back

in again. Pride takes over and neither of them can ask the other to stay.”

For the writer, Carla Lane, who also wrote the series “Solo,” “Leaving" is about something basic and unchangeable. “Men and women are two different beasts, I believe, and that’s why most of us are incompatible in the end. We’re trying to extract things from one another that we’re just incapable of giving. I felt deeply for both characters all the way through, and if I hadn’t felt like that I couldn’t have written it because neither of them is to blame for what happens. It’s just circumstances. “But that’s not to say I’m pessimistic about relationships. I think they are as they should be — exciting, unpredictable, and. the traumas can sometimes be every bit as fulfilling as the ecstasy!” “Leaving” will continue at the same time next week, but on Television Two.