A Facebook friend (someone I've never met face to face, actually) recommended the British program Foyle's War to me a short time ago. I put the series on my amazon.com wish list and received the set for Christmas. This is some of the best television I've ever seen.
It stars Michael Kitchen as Christopher Foyle. He's detective chief superintendent for the Hastings police force. The time frame is World War II. The program is educational in that you realize what the ordinary English citizen was enduring during the war. Each show has a crime (murder, mostly) but the war touches everything. The episode we just watched is "The Funk Hole." The "hole" is a country estate where people who can afford to wait out the war do so. Food shortages are also an important element in the story, along with shelters.
If you watch much British programming -- and we do -- the actors begin to seem like people you should know. This episode included three actors from my very favorite movie, Persuasion (1995). I did not recognize Corin Redgrave without his perm and his gaudy clothes. He was the vain and ignorant father of Miss Anne Elliot. Phoebe Nicholls played Anne's vain and cruel older sister, Miss Elizabeth Elliot. And Richard McCabe was Captain Benwick. A couple of other Austen miniseries actors were also in "The Funk Hole." Joanna David aka Mrs. Gardiner, the sister of Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice (the Colin Firth-Jennifer Ehle version), was recognizable. And Nicholas Farrell was Edmund Bertram in a Mansfield Park from 1985. Apparently he played Mr. Musgrove in the 2007 version of Persuasion, but I've never seen that. Amanda Root, who was Anne Elliot in the real Persuasion, appeared as Foyle's first love in a previous episode. It would have been something to have had her in "The Funk Hole."
These actors have probably all played in Midsomer Murders once or twice (although I can't think Corin Redgrave would have done that series). But when someone has a Jane Austen connection, I have a connection.
It stars Michael Kitchen as Christopher Foyle. He's detective chief superintendent for the Hastings police force. The time frame is World War II. The program is educational in that you realize what the ordinary English citizen was enduring during the war. Each show has a crime (murder, mostly) but the war touches everything. The episode we just watched is "The Funk Hole." The "hole" is a country estate where people who can afford to wait out the war do so. Food shortages are also an important element in the story, along with shelters.
If you watch much British programming -- and we do -- the actors begin to seem like people you should know. This episode included three actors from my very favorite movie, Persuasion (1995). I did not recognize Corin Redgrave without his perm and his gaudy clothes. He was the vain and ignorant father of Miss Anne Elliot. Phoebe Nicholls played Anne's vain and cruel older sister, Miss Elizabeth Elliot. And Richard McCabe was Captain Benwick. A couple of other Austen miniseries actors were also in "The Funk Hole." Joanna David aka Mrs. Gardiner, the sister of Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice (the Colin Firth-Jennifer Ehle version), was recognizable. And Nicholas Farrell was Edmund Bertram in a Mansfield Park from 1985. Apparently he played Mr. Musgrove in the 2007 version of Persuasion, but I've never seen that. Amanda Root, who was Anne Elliot in the real Persuasion, appeared as Foyle's first love in a previous episode. It would have been something to have had her in "The Funk Hole."
These actors have probably all played in Midsomer Murders once or twice (although I can't think Corin Redgrave would have done that series). But when someone has a Jane Austen connection, I have a connection.