The BBC is currently transmitting its 2nd radio version of The Warden and Barchester Towers, having made an excellent one about 10 years ago. The current radio production only emphasises how good this TV production is.
It is difficult to choose between superb performances - the two top contenders are Geraldine McEwan as the imperious consort of the Bishop (Clive Swift) and Alan Rickman as the oily, noxious, calculating over-ambitious slippery Slope, his chaplain (and once her most favoured protégé). The titanic final confrontation between the two is dramatic in the extreme, conducted nevertheless in the appearance at least of polite language, a confrontation between two courageous big beasts of the jungle who tower way above their nominal principal, the hapless Bishop whose secret prayer is that the two destroy each other in the process.
The adaptation by Alan Plater is superb - certainly keeping to the spirit of the book. Given that underlying the story are theological differences between the Mrs Proudie/Slope and the Rev Harding camps (centrally important in mid 19th C Britain) I don't think Plater got this right. However for a modern audience it perhaps doesn't matter).
Nigel Hawthorne's impressively extreme aggression and love of conflict is certainly in the script. Clive Swift's wetness perhaps a little beyond belief but an excellent foil to the "thorn" he believes God chose to give him - his wife. Susan Hampshire made an alluring Contessa Neroni whose slight but audible laughter at Mrs Proudie's expense makes the latter's humiliation all the more grievous in a memorable comic scene. The Rev Arabin might have been lifted from the 1850s in terms of absolutely authentic appearance and manner, slightly discordant compared to the rest of the cast. Donald Pleasance, who specialised in playing odd, slightly other-worldly characters, is not fully convincing as the simple and good Rev Harding.
It stops with Slopes expulsion "back to the gutter from whence he came" according to Mrs Proudie. In the book Mrs Proudie dies suddenly and unexpectedly, causing a sudden change in tone where the Bishop struggles with his beliefs and conscience at his feelings of relief.I think that the adaptation was right not to cover this. It is a long series and parts are fairly procedural rather than dramatic or comic but the set pieces are eternally memorable.
It is difficult to choose between superb performances - the two top contenders are Geraldine McEwan as the imperious consort of the Bishop (Clive Swift) and Alan Rickman as the oily, noxious, calculating over-ambitious slippery Slope, his chaplain (and once her most favoured protégé). The titanic final confrontation between the two is dramatic in the extreme, conducted nevertheless in the appearance at least of polite language, a confrontation between two courageous big beasts of the jungle who tower way above their nominal principal, the hapless Bishop whose secret prayer is that the two destroy each other in the process.
The adaptation by Alan Plater is superb - certainly keeping to the spirit of the book. Given that underlying the story are theological differences between the Mrs Proudie/Slope and the Rev Harding camps (centrally important in mid 19th C Britain) I don't think Plater got this right. However for a modern audience it perhaps doesn't matter).
Nigel Hawthorne's impressively extreme aggression and love of conflict is certainly in the script. Clive Swift's wetness perhaps a little beyond belief but an excellent foil to the "thorn" he believes God chose to give him - his wife. Susan Hampshire made an alluring Contessa Neroni whose slight but audible laughter at Mrs Proudie's expense makes the latter's humiliation all the more grievous in a memorable comic scene. The Rev Arabin might have been lifted from the 1850s in terms of absolutely authentic appearance and manner, slightly discordant compared to the rest of the cast. Donald Pleasance, who specialised in playing odd, slightly other-worldly characters, is not fully convincing as the simple and good Rev Harding.
It stops with Slopes expulsion "back to the gutter from whence he came" according to Mrs Proudie. In the book Mrs Proudie dies suddenly and unexpectedly, causing a sudden change in tone where the Bishop struggles with his beliefs and conscience at his feelings of relief.I think that the adaptation was right not to cover this. It is a long series and parts are fairly procedural rather than dramatic or comic but the set pieces are eternally memorable.