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Love For Lydia - Complete [1977]
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RRP: £59.99
Our Price: £13.71 (subject to change)
A Perfect Drama Series
Review date: 2008-08-21 Rating: 10 out of 10
Love For Lydia is one of the best drama series you will ever buy; it is also exceptional value for money. This television adaptation of H.E. Bate's best novel is old-school television production of the highest quality. Made in 1977 it is organised into thirteen episodes on six discs and lasts for 650 minutes - almost 11 hours of top quality entertainment. H.E. Bates is a modern writer - he died in 1974 - and is England's most underrated and prolific writer.While I say he is a modern writer, in terms of the time in which he lived, in style, he belongs to a different generation. He is, essentially, a pastoral writer, writing with great detail and authority about the English countryside.
Love For Lydia is set in `Edensford' a small town in the English Midlands. The arrival of Lydia, a neice of the wealthy Aspen Family and a young, gauche and seemingly fragile young woman, brings substantial and tragic change to the lives of others in the small semi-rural community, as she interacts with the others with whom she comes into contact. The story begins in the 1920s at the hight of gay young things and the `flapping' dance craze. Lydia, an amoral, hedonistic `butterfly, flits between the young men she encounters, causing jealously, fist fights, pledges of love, broken hearts and death. As a person, we should despise her and her worthless `high-society' type. As a character, brilliantly played by Mel Martin we love, hate and above all are utterly captivated by her - exactly the effect she must have had on the young men she encountered. Martin gives the performance of a lifetime in the lead role and how this actress did not go on to dominate stage, film and television, I will never understand. Other lead roles are played by Christopher Blake, Peter Davidson and Jeremy Irons. The casting of the lead roles is spot on. The quality of acting is high, the scripts very well edited and the settings expertly chosen. Whoever comissioned and produced this series should be congratulated for allowing this complex novel to unwind in a leisurely fashion without cutting too many corners. It is as good a TV adaptation as there has ever been.
Five stars doen not begin to do justice to this series. Graeme Greene described H.E. Bates as `Britain's successor to Checkov'. In fact, he is more accurately described as the lineal successor to Thomas Hardy, though a writer of far greater range than Hardy. Love For Lydia is outstanding. While you are buying the DVD, treat yourself to a copy of the novel. Read the novel first - if you can bare putting off the viewing for a while. This is a purchase to completely delight.
Buy this DVD.
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Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Ralph Arliss
Christopher Blake
Beatrix Lehmann
Peter Davison
Mel Martin
Creators:
Mel Martin (Primary Contributor)
Christopher Blake (Primary Contributor)
Jeff Shepherd (Cinematographer)
Tony Maynard (Cinematographer)
Recording label: Acorn Media
Manufacturer: Acorn Media
EAN: 5036193090356
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 6
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2004-04-19
Number of discs: 6
Audience rating: Parental Guidance
Running time: 647 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1979-09-23
Language: English (Original Language)