Reviews

One of Potter's last TV dramas, it was panned by the popular press for its sex scenes. This however was a front for a more basic tabloid journalistic problem - no-one understood it. Not surprising as this multilevel play is three stories not one, each containing a variation of the most desired woman - Blackeyes. Underlying each of these scenarios are the questions of men and their sexual desire and idolatry of women, each as fruitless fantasy.

The acting is superb and the inter change between the various levels of the story mesmeric, however it is over long. Most of the third part could have been cut without loss. This is a small price to see one of the greatest TV dramas ever constructed. With the BBC having lost its nerve to produce drama of this depth I doubt if we will ever see its like again.

This is actually Tony Robinson hosting a series or archeological digs around the UK. Apparently he took a course at his local University in Archeology to fill in a summer and then teamed up with his professor to make 4 series of these programmes! Programmes cover a weekends dig, together with 'bring the past to life' demonstrations.

A double header of complex imagination (first part) and painful recrimination (second part) in this film of deep feeling and hurt seen through the eyes of the dying author (John Gielgud). David Mercer's script includes all his life long angst of the relationship of father and son, although now in his final years fought out with more complex and participating female characters in the ghost of his dead wife, who doubles as his son's mistress (Elaine Stritch) and daughter-in-law (Ellen Burstyn).

The acting is pure poetry with John Geilgud at his refined best as the drunken and dying author in part celebrating his life of drunken womanising and in part regretting the pain that he has caused, in particular to his family. Dirk Borgarde performing the impossible task of being two imaginary characters and one real one with seemless effort. As the son of the dying author he carries all the pain and hatreds of the dying father both in the old man's fantasy and in his real life of inherited disillusionment. His relationship with his wife and mistress (in practice his mother! complex eh!) changes from the deeply loving to the perceive accusatory of the old man's increasingly drunken imagination.

Ellen Burstyn gives one of her finest film performances as the long suffering wife ,but in the end all the plaudits go to the writer. The style may be only that of the one-liner but each of them hits as an aphorism from the greatest of philosophical minds. The revolving characters of the final part of the authors dreaming make a bewildering tapestry of the imagination.

A fabulous movie, but one that will take many viewings to actually comprehend the complexities of it. Set that video!!