If you liked 'Lark Rise to Candleford', then you'll love this.... Well, ok, they're at least not spinning this out to a twee Sunday evening staple, but we did wonder why this rite-of-passage memoir was part of the short 'literary classics' series rather than a Boxing Day special.
It was a solid, if episodic, adaptation of the much-loved book, with Samantha Morton holding things together nicely as Laurie's long-suffering mother. A voice-over by Timothy Spall as the older Lee gave viewers a taste of the lyrical prose which would otherwise have been lost and there was enough nostalgia for the chocolate boxers in the form of rolling hills and meadows, quaint print frocks and the sort of ramshackle country cottage that would nowadays fetch a cool million. There was also enough grit left to appease the anti-chocolate box brigade, with a child's death, a murder, a war deserter and a father who behaved like Lord Marchmain in 'Brideshead' in refusing to return to his family after WWI (with less obvious cause).
For us, though, it was probably most memorable for the astonishingly brief cameo appearances of Annette Crosbie and June Whitfield as the warring grandmothers, and the inclusion of two young actors who are the offspring of... two actors. Neither was a bad performance, but there are concerns about the accessibility of the profession to those without privilege, with the likes of David Morrissey and Christopher Eccleston raising doubts as to whether their current counterparts, starting out, would be able to make a living at it. By 'privilege' they may be referring to the likes of Eddie Redmayne and Ben Cumberbatch, products of Eton and Harrow, who could no doubt have afforded to rest indefinitely between jobs even before becoming successful. Aren't the ranks of actors, we would argue, equally homogenised by keeping it in the family?
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