"The Pallisers" is a visual retelling of six sequential novels of Anthony Trollope dealing with the Palliser clan through a couple of decades in the nineteenth century.
The novels have been truncated (for instance, the whole triangle of Mr. Cheeseacre, Mrs. Greenow and Captain Bellfield has been excised from the part covering CAN YOU FORGIVE HER?) but Trollope always was too baggy and needed trimming. And for Trollope fanatics, they do trot Griselda Grantley into the first episode.
What remains is so sprawling, Barrington Erle and Dolly Longstaffe (a slight character in the Palliser novels!) are used, individually and in tandem, as a running Greek Chorus through the series. This is a controversial decision, but Moray Watson's Erle is a likable and perhaps absent-minded consummate political insider; while Donald Pickering's Dolly -- acting the lackadaisical, foppish man-about-town -- shows deeper waters running in him than the Dolly from THE WAY WE LIVE NOW.
Though this series was made in the days when this kind of show was performed like a videotaped play, crude effects and rear photography do not interfere with the quality of the production. The sets and costumes are gorgeous and all the exterior party scenes look great.
What "The Pallisers" lacks in effects, it more than compensates for in the acting department.
The show is carried by beautiful Susan Hampshire as Lady Glencora and the sometimes inaudible Philip Latham as Plantagenet Palliser. It's full of solid British actors -- old timers like Roland Culver, Basil Dingham and Roger Livesey, and up-and-comers like Derek Jacobi, Penelope Keith, Anthony Andrews and Jeremy Irons. Stockpiled with notable British actors in small parts, American viewers will recognize Edward Hardwicke of "Sherlock Holmes" and Peter Sallis of Wallace and Gromit amongst others.
Mystery writer John Dickson Carr once had a character ask, "What if Trollope wrote like Dickens?" Well, Dickens was the better word smith, his writing has greater charm, his characters spring more off the page. His stories were better, his various plots dovetailed better than Trollope's do, and when Dickens is truncated the stuff that is excised is often so good it's missed.
Yet Trollope's lesser genius seems to adapt better for television. When Dickens is done accurately, his characters are almost too grotesque on the small screen (see the family of Wackford Squeers in the Nigel Havers "Nicholas Nickleby." Trollope's books are packed with pages of yawn-inducing material this is much more dispensable than anything from Dickens. Trollope's many ill-defined, throw-away characters can be thrown away, and those who remain, sometimes more definable by their names than their characters on the page, seem more suitable for television because they're not larger-than-life. An amorphous mass of literature like Trollope's six Palliser novels can be more properly shaped for television installments than Dickens by judicious pruning.
There's a lot of nipping and tucking of Trollope in "The Pallisers", and that's a good thing. The individual novels, as dramatized, flow from story to story like a Victorian soap opera as characters age, die, are born, have flings, get married, get elected, and so forth.
"The Pallisers" is a long-term commitment that may not suit today's shorter attention spans, but it still can be addictive; and DVDs make it a far cry from the days before normal houses had videotape recorders and viewers had to be on the spot every week for 26 weeks to see this solid saga unfold.
The novels have been truncated (for instance, the whole triangle of Mr. Cheeseacre, Mrs. Greenow and Captain Bellfield has been excised from the part covering CAN YOU FORGIVE HER?) but Trollope always was too baggy and needed trimming. And for Trollope fanatics, they do trot Griselda Grantley into the first episode.
What remains is so sprawling, Barrington Erle and Dolly Longstaffe (a slight character in the Palliser novels!) are used, individually and in tandem, as a running Greek Chorus through the series. This is a controversial decision, but Moray Watson's Erle is a likable and perhaps absent-minded consummate political insider; while Donald Pickering's Dolly -- acting the lackadaisical, foppish man-about-town -- shows deeper waters running in him than the Dolly from THE WAY WE LIVE NOW.
Though this series was made in the days when this kind of show was performed like a videotaped play, crude effects and rear photography do not interfere with the quality of the production. The sets and costumes are gorgeous and all the exterior party scenes look great.
What "The Pallisers" lacks in effects, it more than compensates for in the acting department.
The show is carried by beautiful Susan Hampshire as Lady Glencora and the sometimes inaudible Philip Latham as Plantagenet Palliser. It's full of solid British actors -- old timers like Roland Culver, Basil Dingham and Roger Livesey, and up-and-comers like Derek Jacobi, Penelope Keith, Anthony Andrews and Jeremy Irons. Stockpiled with notable British actors in small parts, American viewers will recognize Edward Hardwicke of "Sherlock Holmes" and Peter Sallis of Wallace and Gromit amongst others.
Mystery writer John Dickson Carr once had a character ask, "What if Trollope wrote like Dickens?" Well, Dickens was the better word smith, his writing has greater charm, his characters spring more off the page. His stories were better, his various plots dovetailed better than Trollope's do, and when Dickens is truncated the stuff that is excised is often so good it's missed.
Yet Trollope's lesser genius seems to adapt better for television. When Dickens is done accurately, his characters are almost too grotesque on the small screen (see the family of Wackford Squeers in the Nigel Havers "Nicholas Nickleby." Trollope's books are packed with pages of yawn-inducing material this is much more dispensable than anything from Dickens. Trollope's many ill-defined, throw-away characters can be thrown away, and those who remain, sometimes more definable by their names than their characters on the page, seem more suitable for television because they're not larger-than-life. An amorphous mass of literature like Trollope's six Palliser novels can be more properly shaped for television installments than Dickens by judicious pruning.
There's a lot of nipping and tucking of Trollope in "The Pallisers", and that's a good thing. The individual novels, as dramatized, flow from story to story like a Victorian soap opera as characters age, die, are born, have flings, get married, get elected, and so forth.
"The Pallisers" is a long-term commitment that may not suit today's shorter attention spans, but it still can be addictive; and DVDs make it a far cry from the days before normal houses had videotape recorders and viewers had to be on the spot every week for 26 weeks to see this solid saga unfold.