Pallisers, The - Part 2

From 1863 onwards Anthony Trollope wrote a series of six novels which became classics of the Victorian period. Under the collective title The Pallisers the BBC turned the novels into an epic 22-episode serial in 1974, the single most ambitious drama production in the history of the Corporation. The series is a mixture of political and romantic intrigue as various male characters vie for power and the women look for love--and all are regularly thwarted by the rigid social codes of the era. Lady Glencora (a marvellously subtle and complex performance by Susan Hampshire) is unsuitably in love with Burgo Fitzgerald (Barry Justice) while aspiring politician Plantagenet Palliser (Philip Latham) yearns for another man's wife. The arranged marriage of spirited Glencora and decent but distant Plantagenet is the catalyst for the saga, which gradually expands to encompass considerable political wheeling and dealing. With a wide streak of satire The Pallisers is as witty as it is moving, a high point of 1970's BBC drama only surpassed by I, Claudius (1976). As a prestige BBC drama it is immaculately presented and finely acted, though the occasional obvious back projection or painted backdrop show how much more lavish television production values have since become. --Gary S Dalkin