I had not seen this series since it was shown in the mid 1970s when I was a mere slip of a gel! :)
As with many of the BBC's 1970s historical drama productions this has finally been released on DVD and I bought a copy to see if it was as good as I remembered it and for Mr FC to watch - as he missed it back in the 1970s.
I have to admit that episode one left us very disappointed. John Hale was a good playwright (he wrote The Lion's Cub episode in Elizabeth R) and also screenplays for Mary Queen of Scots and Anne of the Thousand Days. However, in this episode he seemed out of his depth in a different historical period with entirely different historical characters.
There was far too much confused dialogue including a lot of shouting and (for want of a better phrase) over acting. We both got the feeling that the director, script, and actors were not really engaged with the characters.
Some of the less well known individuals were not clearly introduced either (Woolner and Stephens being just two such examples) and several scenes showed the group as little more than overgrown schoolboys consuming prodigious quantities of tea and cake, when we would have thought chloral and absinthe might have been the preferred tipples of choice.
However, the first episode does open with a laugh-out loud line when Holman Hunt arrives at Millais' home clutching his copy of Ruskin and announces "Good news. I am not mad" which must rank as one of the best character introductions in a drama.
Having watched episode one we wondered what the rest of the series might be like and considered not bothering with it. However, we persevered and watched episode two (also by John Hale) that deals with Ruskin, Effie Gray, and Millais.
We were not disappointed. The actors seemed to have settled into their roles and the recreation of Millais' famous portrait of Ruskin (for whom David Collings was a dead ringer) was superbly done.
We have since watched the entire series and have thoroughly enjoyed it. Of course as with all old productions there is some background noise and a few minor glitches on the tape but none of that detracts from the drama.
Ben Kingsley was excellent as Rossetti and Patricia Quinn, Kika Markham, and Kenneth Colley were also dead ringers for their respective characters (Lizzie Siddall, Jane Burden - later Morris, and Burne-Jones) as was Frank Vincent for Swinburne (see Rossetti's painting of him for a comparison).
I must also comment on the artists who recreated so many of those wonderful paintings "in progress" as well as the drafts and sketches. There was no CGI in those days and the time and effort taken to reproduce those images must have been immense and painstaking.
So for those of us who remember the "Golden Years" of BBC dramas this was a thoroughly enjoyable trip down memory lane and at 75 minutes an episode there was enough time to deal with the various incidents in the lives of these brilliant and brilliantly flawed individuals.
As with many of the BBC's 1970s historical drama productions this has finally been released on DVD and I bought a copy to see if it was as good as I remembered it and for Mr FC to watch - as he missed it back in the 1970s.
I have to admit that episode one left us very disappointed. John Hale was a good playwright (he wrote The Lion's Cub episode in Elizabeth R) and also screenplays for Mary Queen of Scots and Anne of the Thousand Days. However, in this episode he seemed out of his depth in a different historical period with entirely different historical characters.
There was far too much confused dialogue including a lot of shouting and (for want of a better phrase) over acting. We both got the feeling that the director, script, and actors were not really engaged with the characters.
Some of the less well known individuals were not clearly introduced either (Woolner and Stephens being just two such examples) and several scenes showed the group as little more than overgrown schoolboys consuming prodigious quantities of tea and cake, when we would have thought chloral and absinthe might have been the preferred tipples of choice.
However, the first episode does open with a laugh-out loud line when Holman Hunt arrives at Millais' home clutching his copy of Ruskin and announces "Good news. I am not mad" which must rank as one of the best character introductions in a drama.
Having watched episode one we wondered what the rest of the series might be like and considered not bothering with it. However, we persevered and watched episode two (also by John Hale) that deals with Ruskin, Effie Gray, and Millais.
We were not disappointed. The actors seemed to have settled into their roles and the recreation of Millais' famous portrait of Ruskin (for whom David Collings was a dead ringer) was superbly done.
We have since watched the entire series and have thoroughly enjoyed it. Of course as with all old productions there is some background noise and a few minor glitches on the tape but none of that detracts from the drama.
Ben Kingsley was excellent as Rossetti and Patricia Quinn, Kika Markham, and Kenneth Colley were also dead ringers for their respective characters (Lizzie Siddall, Jane Burden - later Morris, and Burne-Jones) as was Frank Vincent for Swinburne (see Rossetti's painting of him for a comparison).
I must also comment on the artists who recreated so many of those wonderful paintings "in progress" as well as the drafts and sketches. There was no CGI in those days and the time and effort taken to reproduce those images must have been immense and painstaking.
So for those of us who remember the "Golden Years" of BBC dramas this was a thoroughly enjoyable trip down memory lane and at 75 minutes an episode there was enough time to deal with the various incidents in the lives of these brilliant and brilliantly flawed individuals.
