As Dogberry said in Shakespeare, "Comparisons are odorous." Nevertheless, while this review focuses on the 1968 "Cold Comfort Farm" it will also refer to the 1995 movie.
Background: COLD COMFORT FARM was a comic novel of the 1930s by Stella Gibbons. The novel was not only rural farce beating "Green Acres" by thirty years, it was also a futuristic fantasy (an element lost in dramatizations); but its futuristic fantasy element was fairly flimsy, considering Gibbons had characters refer to movies as "talkies." Though ostensibly satirizing rural novels like those of Mary Webb and Thomas Hardy (Gibbons begins her novel with a preface to a fictitious rural novelist), it's good enough to stand alone as a comic novel ranking with Wodehouse or Douglas Adams.
Story: Flora Poste is a nineteen year old Londoner who decides to sponge off her relatives. Deciding to join the Starkadder family on a Sussex farm, she finds herself in the world's most dysfunctional family. She sticks it out, (1) because the Starkadders imply some "rights" Flora has because of a wrong done to her father decades before, and (2) to bring some no-nonsense order to the Starkadders' chaos.
The Dramatization: The cast looks good on paper. Rosalie Crutchley is a perfect personification of Judith. Her burly son Reuben, who wants the farm from his father, is ably portrayed by Brian Blessed. Freddie Jones does a masterful job as the thoroughly disgusting Urk, as does Aubrey Morris as "Mr. Mybug." Peter Egan falls a little short as Seth, but he's good looking and a fine actor.
From there, we go downhill, cast wise. Three of the major players are inadequate. Sarah Badel, a fine comic actress (watch her in "The Taming of the Shrew" opposite John Cleese), doesn't take Flora Poste seriously (a much better choice was made in the 1995 movie with the serious-minded and prettier Kate Beckinsale). Nor does Aunt Ada Doom fare much better. Fay Compton's credits go back to the silent era and she scored a palpable hit in the recent (at the time) "Forsyte Saga" (which was amazingly popular in both England and America). The story depends on the final showdown between Flora and Aunt Ada, but neither actress, in this situation, comes off strong enough (or, in the case of Badel, serious enough) to make the confrontation worth waiting for.
The biggest disappointment is Alastair Sim as Amos Starkadder, Judith's husband and patriarch of the wacky clan. Sim is a proved performer, but perhaps because of creeping age (he was nearly 70 and looks it) he feels weak. This is too bad, because Amos is a fiery preacher of one of Gibbons' finest creations, "The Church of the Quivering Brethren." The Quivering Brethren is often misunderstood. Gibbons herself was a Christian and the Brethren is not a Christian group. They never refer to a new Covenant, despite one passing reference to a line in Matthew. For the Quivering Brethren there is no Redemption, no Salvation. They are sinners bound for hell. The Salvation of Christ has nothing to do with this group. (One serious error made in the 1995 movie was filling the church with Christian symbols, though the utterly lost Brethren in the novel, who come to hear about their certain damnation, feel more like a satanist offshoot).
After the insufficiency of Sarah Badel (especially as compared with Beckinsale in the '95 version) and Sim's fading powers, the worst thing about this version is the production itself.
Like so much British television of the time, "Cold Comfort Farm" was videotaped in long takes, and apparently with insufficient rehearsal. The cast speaks over each other, like a bad Robert Altman movie. The production values are pretty grim--which is perfect for the first part, as the Starkadders start off pretty grim. But "Cold Comfort Farm" remains grim throughout. And why does Flora's friend Mary have that annoying accent? Not only that, the narration by Joan Bakewell simply isn't good (compare it to the narration of Elizabeth Proud in the radio version often repeated on BBC radio 4-extra).
I love COLD COMFORT FARM and though I'm constantly reading new things I revisit the Starkadders every year. It would be nice to find a version that truly nails the spirit Stella Gibbons gave it. Neither this version nor the 1995 film (which gets Amos all wrong) live up to the wonderfully comic source material. But both this version and the 1995 have lots to recommend them, as well as lots to criticize.
Background: COLD COMFORT FARM was a comic novel of the 1930s by Stella Gibbons. The novel was not only rural farce beating "Green Acres" by thirty years, it was also a futuristic fantasy (an element lost in dramatizations); but its futuristic fantasy element was fairly flimsy, considering Gibbons had characters refer to movies as "talkies." Though ostensibly satirizing rural novels like those of Mary Webb and Thomas Hardy (Gibbons begins her novel with a preface to a fictitious rural novelist), it's good enough to stand alone as a comic novel ranking with Wodehouse or Douglas Adams.
Story: Flora Poste is a nineteen year old Londoner who decides to sponge off her relatives. Deciding to join the Starkadder family on a Sussex farm, she finds herself in the world's most dysfunctional family. She sticks it out, (1) because the Starkadders imply some "rights" Flora has because of a wrong done to her father decades before, and (2) to bring some no-nonsense order to the Starkadders' chaos.
The Dramatization: The cast looks good on paper. Rosalie Crutchley is a perfect personification of Judith. Her burly son Reuben, who wants the farm from his father, is ably portrayed by Brian Blessed. Freddie Jones does a masterful job as the thoroughly disgusting Urk, as does Aubrey Morris as "Mr. Mybug." Peter Egan falls a little short as Seth, but he's good looking and a fine actor.
From there, we go downhill, cast wise. Three of the major players are inadequate. Sarah Badel, a fine comic actress (watch her in "The Taming of the Shrew" opposite John Cleese), doesn't take Flora Poste seriously (a much better choice was made in the 1995 movie with the serious-minded and prettier Kate Beckinsale). Nor does Aunt Ada Doom fare much better. Fay Compton's credits go back to the silent era and she scored a palpable hit in the recent (at the time) "Forsyte Saga" (which was amazingly popular in both England and America). The story depends on the final showdown between Flora and Aunt Ada, but neither actress, in this situation, comes off strong enough (or, in the case of Badel, serious enough) to make the confrontation worth waiting for.
The biggest disappointment is Alastair Sim as Amos Starkadder, Judith's husband and patriarch of the wacky clan. Sim is a proved performer, but perhaps because of creeping age (he was nearly 70 and looks it) he feels weak. This is too bad, because Amos is a fiery preacher of one of Gibbons' finest creations, "The Church of the Quivering Brethren." The Quivering Brethren is often misunderstood. Gibbons herself was a Christian and the Brethren is not a Christian group. They never refer to a new Covenant, despite one passing reference to a line in Matthew. For the Quivering Brethren there is no Redemption, no Salvation. They are sinners bound for hell. The Salvation of Christ has nothing to do with this group. (One serious error made in the 1995 movie was filling the church with Christian symbols, though the utterly lost Brethren in the novel, who come to hear about their certain damnation, feel more like a satanist offshoot).
After the insufficiency of Sarah Badel (especially as compared with Beckinsale in the '95 version) and Sim's fading powers, the worst thing about this version is the production itself.
Like so much British television of the time, "Cold Comfort Farm" was videotaped in long takes, and apparently with insufficient rehearsal. The cast speaks over each other, like a bad Robert Altman movie. The production values are pretty grim--which is perfect for the first part, as the Starkadders start off pretty grim. But "Cold Comfort Farm" remains grim throughout. And why does Flora's friend Mary have that annoying accent? Not only that, the narration by Joan Bakewell simply isn't good (compare it to the narration of Elizabeth Proud in the radio version often repeated on BBC radio 4-extra).
I love COLD COMFORT FARM and though I'm constantly reading new things I revisit the Starkadders every year. It would be nice to find a version that truly nails the spirit Stella Gibbons gave it. Neither this version nor the 1995 film (which gets Amos all wrong) live up to the wonderfully comic source material. But both this version and the 1995 have lots to recommend them, as well as lots to criticize.