Don't get through life too fast. You'll be bored by 50 and there is no greater bore than a bored woman..." (Marguess' advice to Marjorie who asks her grandfather to clear the debts).
Marjorie Ferrar (Caroline Blakiston) gives her grandfather Marquess (George Benson) a word of a lady. She will not cheapen their aristocratic name any further and try her skills on the stage. Yes, the Ferrar case is over and one of the central themes of the episode deals with 'saving face.' Not only is 'saving face' applied to politics or aristocracy but Fleur. The dramatization of Donald Wilson with a few liberties taken with the literary source supplies her character with a few redeeming moments. Here is the Fleur we will like and the Fleur so unlike the Forsytes, so unlike the man of property's daughter. She is a dear.
The titled STRIKE at the railway, which symbolizes the very situation of England at the time along with the generation gap that makes the spirit of the age against the elderly, is a background to a far more profound depiction of the reality. Some policies and opinions equal with the viewpoints that 'liberty was more destroyed by those who abused it than by those who opposed it,' others take steps in a more practical manner. Steps in social commitment. Here, again, the most active of them all is Michael Mont (Nicholas Penell). He gives his wife a great opportunity to do something more valuable than just sit at the 4711 perfume or require to travel the world giving no option for less. A chance for her head and a change for her character...She will run a canteen for railway volunteers not realizing yet that this will be the moment when past will have its reminiscence again. She will feed the first love of her life. But the past does not only have its voice here...
The episode, in spite of the title "Strike" supplied with certain archive footage of the general strike in the 1920s incorporated into the storyline, is, perhaps, most famous for the Hotel Potomac sequence at Washington D.C. Soames agrees to travel the world with Fleur who does not resort merely to a stay at St Moritz, Switzerland and there, he encounters Irene. Another unwanted encounter and to what extent... Unlike Fleur who, in the final moment of the episode, encounters Jon (Martin Jarvis) with full enthusiasm, he is distanced, remains unnoticed by the beautiful woman who plays the piano (mind you that Irene playing the piano has become a mainstay depiction of the character pointing at her sort of unreachable beauty and mystique). We do not know whether he is hesitating and planning to approach and have a word with her or not. One thing is certain, this is one of the scenes that displays a true variety of emotions. Everything is measured in an excellent way with the unforgettable atmosphere enhanced by the terrific design by Spencer Chapman. The variety of hesitating emotions and feelings unexpressed verbally unfortunately concludes to the slam of the door. Yet another chance to put 'let bygones be bygones' into practice?
Donald Wilson's dramatization of the episode along with David Giles' direction also marks the point that has already been addressed at the plot of the Bickets. That is the contrast between the problems of the rich and the poor. In an atmospheric memorable scene, one Stainford (David Cargill) who claims to be or have been a friend of Val's at Oxford visits Winifred (Margaret Tyzack). While she talks to her brother Soames over the phone (the conversation hardly gets to its desirable point), he steals a snuff box, a sentimental object that she cherishes as a memory of her father. Naturally, the whole fuss around this theft bursts out being a point contrasted to the real problems that Michael encounters within the society.
The final moments, when the canteen is already closed and the strike is called off, foreshadow the last themes of the serial. Jon appears in Fleur's life again and Michael's suspicions and assumptions are proved at June's. Not merely the portrait of Fleur is about to be painted by Harold Blade (Bryan Marshall) but the past of her youth might lead her husband to jealousy and her father to the deepest concern...but none of us to any bore...
Marjorie Ferrar (Caroline Blakiston) gives her grandfather Marquess (George Benson) a word of a lady. She will not cheapen their aristocratic name any further and try her skills on the stage. Yes, the Ferrar case is over and one of the central themes of the episode deals with 'saving face.' Not only is 'saving face' applied to politics or aristocracy but Fleur. The dramatization of Donald Wilson with a few liberties taken with the literary source supplies her character with a few redeeming moments. Here is the Fleur we will like and the Fleur so unlike the Forsytes, so unlike the man of property's daughter. She is a dear.
The titled STRIKE at the railway, which symbolizes the very situation of England at the time along with the generation gap that makes the spirit of the age against the elderly, is a background to a far more profound depiction of the reality. Some policies and opinions equal with the viewpoints that 'liberty was more destroyed by those who abused it than by those who opposed it,' others take steps in a more practical manner. Steps in social commitment. Here, again, the most active of them all is Michael Mont (Nicholas Penell). He gives his wife a great opportunity to do something more valuable than just sit at the 4711 perfume or require to travel the world giving no option for less. A chance for her head and a change for her character...She will run a canteen for railway volunteers not realizing yet that this will be the moment when past will have its reminiscence again. She will feed the first love of her life. But the past does not only have its voice here...
The episode, in spite of the title "Strike" supplied with certain archive footage of the general strike in the 1920s incorporated into the storyline, is, perhaps, most famous for the Hotel Potomac sequence at Washington D.C. Soames agrees to travel the world with Fleur who does not resort merely to a stay at St Moritz, Switzerland and there, he encounters Irene. Another unwanted encounter and to what extent... Unlike Fleur who, in the final moment of the episode, encounters Jon (Martin Jarvis) with full enthusiasm, he is distanced, remains unnoticed by the beautiful woman who plays the piano (mind you that Irene playing the piano has become a mainstay depiction of the character pointing at her sort of unreachable beauty and mystique). We do not know whether he is hesitating and planning to approach and have a word with her or not. One thing is certain, this is one of the scenes that displays a true variety of emotions. Everything is measured in an excellent way with the unforgettable atmosphere enhanced by the terrific design by Spencer Chapman. The variety of hesitating emotions and feelings unexpressed verbally unfortunately concludes to the slam of the door. Yet another chance to put 'let bygones be bygones' into practice?
Donald Wilson's dramatization of the episode along with David Giles' direction also marks the point that has already been addressed at the plot of the Bickets. That is the contrast between the problems of the rich and the poor. In an atmospheric memorable scene, one Stainford (David Cargill) who claims to be or have been a friend of Val's at Oxford visits Winifred (Margaret Tyzack). While she talks to her brother Soames over the phone (the conversation hardly gets to its desirable point), he steals a snuff box, a sentimental object that she cherishes as a memory of her father. Naturally, the whole fuss around this theft bursts out being a point contrasted to the real problems that Michael encounters within the society.
The final moments, when the canteen is already closed and the strike is called off, foreshadow the last themes of the serial. Jon appears in Fleur's life again and Michael's suspicions and assumptions are proved at June's. Not merely the portrait of Fleur is about to be painted by Harold Blade (Bryan Marshall) but the past of her youth might lead her husband to jealousy and her father to the deepest concern...but none of us to any bore...
