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Reviews
Play for Today: All Good Men (1974)
Thinking viewers theatre
Another excellent play from the Play for Today series. Stunning performance from Jack Shepherd as the embittered Marxist son of Edward Waite (Bill Fraser), former miner, Trade Union leader and about to be ennobled Labour MP. Frances de La Tour also impresses as Edward's sensible sister while Ronald Pickup completes the quartet as the wily yet intrusive TV producer.
For those who savour intelligent political debate, the script could hardly be better. Did Edward Waite in particular, and the Labour Party in general, improve the lives of the British working class or were they neutered by and subsumed into the British establishment. The core of the play is a row between Edward and his son on this point. It is gripping stuff and the play allows the viewer the privilege of making up his or her own mind. Why can't the BBC make plays of this calibre today ?
England, My England (1995)
Wonderfully moving
I finished watching this today and thought it quite brilliant in parts. I especially liked the Dryden extracts. The film captures something about English melancholy and, being about Purcell and his sublime music, how could it not. The late 17th century was a time of vertiginous change, socially and politically. How could it not induce melancholia when so much of what was held dear was either destroyed or now held in disrepute. This pattern of rapid change followed by initial confusion, regret and sadness is a recurrent theme in English, perhaps all nations', history. This recurrence is captured here cleverly by making the film a play within a play. Simon Callow as Charles II was excellent.