Sunday, February 20, 2011

Sunday Night Treat

Some author’s names have stayed in a special compartment of my girlhood memory: Angela Brazil, Richmal Crompton, Margaret Mitchell, Louisa. M. Alcott and Winifred Holtby. Winifred Holtby wrote South Riding in the 1930’s and it was published posthumously. Set in a fictional part of Yorkshire – there is no South Riding – it tells the story of Sarah Burton an inspirational teacher. Her fiancée is killed in WW1 and she returns from London to Yorkshire – her birth place – to become head of a grammar school. Sarah is a gutsy heroine – she needs to be to make any headway in the male council dominated Yorkshire.

The novel has been adapted by Andrew Davies who has such titles as Middlemarch, Pride and Prejudice and Vanity Fair already under his belt. The cast includes Anna Maxwell Martin as Sarah and Douglas Henshall and David Morrissey are the two male leads. The fantastic cast include Penelope Wilton and Peter Firth. There are three parts on Sundays at 9pm on BBC 1.

I always pictured Wendy Hiller in the part – remember Shaw’s Major Barbara – but I’m sure Anna Maxwell Martin won’t disappoint. I wouldn’t miss it for the world so must record the third episode of The Promise – a dissection of the Palestinian and Jewish problems in the forties – more enthralling than it sounds.

5 comments:

angryparsnip said...

Sounds wonderful ! I hope our PBS channel will get this soon.

cheers, parsnip

Pat said...

Parsnip: we can watch it for up to a week afterwards with BBC iPlayer.
Try this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/ and see if you get it.
I think you would enjoy it.

Eryl said...

Ooh, I will watch on iplayer tomorrow between shifts. I've not heard of the book before but it sounds absolutely my kind of thing.

Pearl said...

This sounds like something I would really enjoy.

Pearl

Pat said...

Pearl: I hope you manage to see it. It seems possible that if I can get it on my computer it should be possible all over the world. After all it is world wide.