Intelligent period drama

Press, 5 April 1989, Page 17

Intelligent period drama

Ruth Ranker

on television

“Christabel” on Sunday evenings on One is tough and good looking, and doesn’t oversimplify history. It’s all the things that we still expect from intelligent 8.8. C. period drama. A surprise, however, is that anyone tuning in for another of Dennis Potter’s mind-teasers would find it plain story-telling indeed. His “Singing Detective” was rare television fiction. Potter was given extraordinary control over the script and creative concept from the earliest ideas to the final editing stage. Why, he even gave one of the main roles to the story itself. In an era when even British television series have gone in for teams of script-writers, this one is well served in having Potter scripting for the craft team. The story is from the life and is deftly conveyed by an unobtrusive television narrative. Potter has crafted an elegant but straightforward script, laying the scenes one upon the other in chronological order as we become involved in Christabel’s experiences of Germany in the thirties. From the introductory moments in English rural summer through the dark scenes of burning syna-

gogues we are — so far at least — given an impeccably accurate reflection of the period. The main strength of the drama lies in a female perspective on growing Nazism. Early on, Christabel says, “I hate politics. What has it got to do with me or us?” She begins as a romantic young wife. If this were a mini-series she would end it a romantic too. But at the end of the first episode we found her still so English, privileged and naive, already addressing political realities.

She is trapped in Germany at the outbreak of World War Two. The individual is increasingly being tied to larger events of state, but Christabel and her husband Peter are not yet showing any sign of surrendering their freedom. How will they succeed? Nazism has been a popular setting for lots of television drama. Its images and stereotypes are part of our popularculture images of total evil. The really hard work is to create more than a stirring yam of goodies and baddies against its visual backdrop. Christabel’s domestic cocoon initially helps her avoid what is happening around her. It’s only when events begin to affect her domestic arrangements that she begins to understand that politics affect her as well. And it is the development in domestic relationships that provided the strongest moments in the first episode. The scenes with her bigoted anti-Hun father, the Jewish doctor, and the peasant gardeners (English or German) are some of the most convincing recreations I’ve seen of what Hitler meant for common people. In the end it’s the “human” face of Nazism

that brings it all home ... the kind-hearted but misguided gardener dressed in Brown-shirt regalia walking up the garden path hand in hand with Christabel’s children, who then give the Hitler salute. Moments like these cut through the cardboard cliches of Nazism, and we glimpse what it was like to be in Germany and politically uncommitted in the thirties. In some ways “Christobel” takes its cue from the recent epic German film "Heimat,” but all credit to the English woman and man who have tried to recreate and understand the period for non-Germans. Certainly 8.8. C. drama doesn’t play to the adbreaks, and the over-all effect is of a slow, carefully considered build up of atmosphere. And of course leisurely TV is an endangered form of programming even in Britain these days. Finally a note to Mobil. Please give Mr Stewart a rest. Why not, in this postadless Sunday era give us a gorgeous ad. A Canterbury version of the Europa West Coast saga will do nicely. Sponsorship dressed up in cultural rags like these we do not need. Does Mr Stewart count as local content?