An adaptation of Kingsley Amis's novel from 1969. It also marked the return of Albert Finney the BBC after some years.
Just to know that big stars doing prestige television is not a recent thing. Finney was attracted by the script adapted by the award winning Malcolm Bradbury. It was quality and expensive television with expensive special effects.
The story is novel is set in The Green Man inn. Maurice Allington is the middle aged owner with a second wife, a teenage daughter and elderly father living upstairs.
Maurice is both irascible and charming, regaling his diners of the ghost story connected to the Green Man. Back in the in the 17th century.
He is also a heavy drinker and a womaniser. The first episode has the sudden death of his father at a dinner party.
It leads to Maurice having panic attacks, suffering from hallucinations.
He claims to have seen Thomas Underhill, the previous owner who was also a Cambridge scholar who dabbled in the occult. Underhill was linked to several murders.
The first episode quickly allows Finney to shine in a way he could not over the last few years in the cinema. You can believe his Maurice as a rampant womaniser and a bon vivant. He is having an affair with the doctor's glamorous wife and trying to set up a threesome.
Finney does verge on hamminess when it comes to the apparitions such as when he runs screaming from the restaurant diners.
The first episode does end with Maurice meeting his apparition.
Just to show how times change. There were guest appearances from two real life journalists who appeared as themselves as diners. One of them, Clement Freud was subsequently accused of child sex abuse after his death.
Just to know that big stars doing prestige television is not a recent thing. Finney was attracted by the script adapted by the award winning Malcolm Bradbury. It was quality and expensive television with expensive special effects.
The story is novel is set in The Green Man inn. Maurice Allington is the middle aged owner with a second wife, a teenage daughter and elderly father living upstairs.
Maurice is both irascible and charming, regaling his diners of the ghost story connected to the Green Man. Back in the in the 17th century.
He is also a heavy drinker and a womaniser. The first episode has the sudden death of his father at a dinner party.
It leads to Maurice having panic attacks, suffering from hallucinations.
He claims to have seen Thomas Underhill, the previous owner who was also a Cambridge scholar who dabbled in the occult. Underhill was linked to several murders.
The first episode quickly allows Finney to shine in a way he could not over the last few years in the cinema. You can believe his Maurice as a rampant womaniser and a bon vivant. He is having an affair with the doctor's glamorous wife and trying to set up a threesome.
Finney does verge on hamminess when it comes to the apparitions such as when he runs screaming from the restaurant diners.
The first episode does end with Maurice meeting his apparition.
Just to show how times change. There were guest appearances from two real life journalists who appeared as themselves as diners. One of them, Clement Freud was subsequently accused of child sex abuse after his death.
