"The Round Tower" was one of several novels by Catherine Cookson which were dramatised for television serial by Tyne-Tees Television between 1989 and 2001. These were the days when Britain's ITV network was divided into a number of regional franchises, each with its own distinct character. Tyne-Tees covered the North-East of England, the region from which Cookson came and in which most of her works are set.
Like most of Cookson's novels, "The Round Tower" is a historical romance, although it is set in a comparatively recent period, the 1950s. (Many of her other works are set in the 19th century). The main characters are Vanessa Ratcliffe, the 17-year-old daughter of a wealthy Newcastle businessman, and Angus Cotton, a foreman in the engineering works owned by Vanessa's father Jonathan. The Ratcliffes, needless to say, do not approve of Vanessa's friendship with a young man they regard as their social inferior. Jonathan and his wife Jane are firm believers in keeping up appearances; they already occupy a high position on the social ladder and have ambitions to rise even higher. (Their other daughter Susan is engaged to the son of an aristocratic family).
Things get even worse from their point of view when Vanessa reveals that she is pregnant. Although she refuses to name the father, her parents assume that Angus is to blame. (In fact, the real father is Jonathan's business partner and neighbour, Arthur Brett, with whom Vanessa had a brief fling). Jonathan and Jane make arrangements for Vanessa to have an abortion (still officially illegal in the 1950s, but nevertheless easily available to anyone with the money to pay for one). Vanessa, however, refuses to abort the baby and walks out of the family home, following which her parents disown her. The film then follows the progress of the relationship between Vanessa and Angus, who stands by her and marries her to give her baby a father.
The storyline remanded me in some respects of Stan Barstow's "A Kind of Loving", set in Northern England around the same historical period and which also dealt with a girl who gets pregnant out of marriage, although in that case the man she marries is indeed the father. In both cases the young couple are unable to find a home of their own and have to live with their parents. "A Kind of Loving" was made into a film in 1962, at the time of the "kitchen sink" movement in the British cinema, and the scenes depicting Angus's home life clearly show the influence of this movement. Angus, who has ambitions to go into business on his own, is an example of the "young man on the make", a common figure in "kitchen sink" novels and the films that were based on them.
The story is at times melodramatic, but it is an entertaining one, and there are a number of good acting performances. I would count among these Ben Miles as Angus, Keith Barron as Jonathan and Dennis Lawson as Arthur and Isabelle Amyes as his wife Irene. Arthur is a pitiable figure; he comes from an old-established family in the town, but only holds a junior partnership in the firm and is regularly browbeaten by both his overbearing senior partner Jonathan and by his shrewish, domineering wife, as big a snob as the Ratcliffes. His brief affair with Vanessa was a mistake for both of them, but it is easy to see why it happened. He was desperately looking for the love Irene failed to show him, and she was looking for a father-figure at a time when her biological father paid more attention to his social standing than to her.
"The Round Tower" is still well worth watching more than twenty years after it was made. I shall be watching out for other Cookson adaptations. 7/10.
