Cider with Rosie (2015)

A semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story set in the Cotswolds during and immediately after the First World War.

Director:

Philippa Lowthorpe

Writers:

Ben Vanstone, Laurie Lee (based on the book by)

Stars:

Timothy Spall, Samantha Morton, Georgie Smith

2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Timothy Spall	...	Laurie Lee (voice)
Samantha Morton	...	Annie Lee
Georgie Smith	...	Young Loll
Teddie-Rose Malleson-Allen	...	Frances (as Teddie Rose Malleson-Allen)
Dylan Turland	...	Young Jack
Georgia Brinkworth	...	Young Phyl
Emma Curtis	...	Marge
Bebe Cave	...	Doth
Shola Adewusi	...	Mrs Moore
Matthew Steer	...	Vicar
Annette Crosbie	...	Granny Trill
June Whitfield	...	Granny Wallon
Billy Howle	...	Private James Harris
Sarah Sweeney	...	Miss Buckley
Isabella Polkinghorne	...	Young Jo

Storyline

In 1918, with her husband working in the War office - and subsequently leaving the family - devoted mother Annie Lee takes her step-daughters and her own children to live in the idyllic Gloucestershire countryside, the youngest being the sickly Laurie, known as Loll. Here they witness two feuding matrons, Granny Trill and Granny Wallon and shelter a young army deserter hiding in the woods until his capture. At school Loll and his classmates are terrorized by the formidable teacher Crabby until hulking Spadge Hopkins literally puts her in her place. Far more important to Loll's schooldays are the captivating Burdock sisters, Jo and Rosie, and, as he grows into adolescence and beyond, eventually leaving home to seek his fortune, he samples the delights of cider with Rosie.

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Plot Keywords:

semi autobiographical | cotswolds | coming of age | death of sister | rural setting | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

27 September 2015 (UK)

Also Known As:

Cider med Rosie

Filming Locations:

Slad, Gloucestershire, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC),Origin Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

Laurie Lee on writing Cider with Rosie: "I shut myself up two years in the process of writing it. I was down there on the edge of the Fulham Road (London) with blinds drawn. Two solid years, my friends never saw me. I wrote it three times. I sort of carved it about and chopped it down and refined it, yes there was a lot of sweat to it." (Source: 1959 BBC interview)

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Goofs

When Loll is at school and his form says the Lord's Prayer, they begin 'Our Father who...' but in the 1920s the older version 'Our Father which...' would have been used. 'Our Father who...' did not become common in England until the 1970s.

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Quotes

[Annie is upstairs nursing her new-borm baby. Jack goes up to see her]
Annie Lee: Hello, darling. How is everyone?
Young Jack: Oh, all right.
Annie Lee: You behaving yourself?
Young Jack: I've not broken nothin'.
Annie Lee: Good boy. What's everybody up to?
Young Jack: Marj is out in the yard, Doth's peeling spuds.
Annie Lee: What about the others?
Young Jack: Frances is cleaning her trolley and Phyl is sitting on the steps.
Annie Lee: What about our Lol?
[...]

User Reviews

Halcyon days...

A truly magical production, enjoyed all the more for not being encumbered with an all-star cast (although Samantha Morton was rather wonderful as the author's mother, Annie, and Timothy Spall rolled his 'r's in an authentic Gloucestershire accent, narrating with excerpts taken directly from the book as the author himself).

The film was dotted with cameos, perhaps most notably Annette Crosbie as Granny Trill, and there are lots of recognizable faces, but the whole cast performed their tasks in an understated and businesslike fashion-a large cast, as the film dips in and out of different periods of the author's early life in a seemingly random fashion, reminiscent of the book upon which it was based.

Quite how the production team managed to return Slad (the actual village where Lee grew up) to its pre-war look, I have no idea, but it worked beautifully, and the English countryside never looked more alluring. When Lee published Cider With Rosie in 1959, he acknowledged that this world had already passed us by forever, so to re-create it for a Sunday night TV drama was no mean feat...

The costumes were right, the language was right-even the slang, and there was just the right amount of magic dust sprinkled throughout the whole film...

Cider With Rosie used to be part of every English schoolboy's literary canon, but has recently fallen out of favour. I hope there were enough English Literature teachers watching who remember how good & enjoyable a work this is, and will start setting it again as a required text. I know this was part of a short season of BBC modern literary dramatizations, but I hope that in this case, the BBC might consider commissioning an adaptation of the sequel, 'As I Stepped Out One Midsummer's Morning', which has been woefully neglected over the years...

All in all, a marvellous production, not to be missed-it has, in one stroke, re-established my faith in BBC drama... For those of you yet to see it-I'm jealous!..