Nancy Astor

Historical BBC series on the life of Nancy Astor one of the three beautiful and talented Langhorne sisters from Virginia,USA. Each of whom was as charismatic as they were charming, but none more so than the second eldest Nancy. She was not only to marry one of the richest men in the world at the time William Waldorf Astor but to make her mark in politics as the first woman member of the british parliament. In the course of a very interesting life she suffered her share of tragedies including her first marriage to a profligate gambling womaniser whom she never stopped loving and a domineering love hate relationship with her first born Bobby. Throughout the series we are also introduced to the famous personalities of the time, Margot Asquith, Winston Churchill, Nancy Cunard, Paul Robson,Charlie Chaplin, Bernard Shaw to name a few. During a parliamentary tour of the soviet union she harangues Joseph Stalin, "when are you going to stop killing people?".Running for election and not wishing to hide her wealthy background Nancy would motor around in her chauffeured rolls royce from factory to slum to colliery urging ordinary working men to vote for her. They did. Nancy as she grew older was never one to hold back and because of this and a very sharp tongue made enemies within her own party. Consequently she was never offered a cabinet post and passed over for many of the important select committees. It was an anti climax to what could have been a promising career. Despite these setbacks Nancy never forgot her debt to the working class englishman and on her death bequeathed a large part of the Astor fortune to the appropriate charities.

This series will appeal to many admirers of victorian and edwardian history. Many of the scenes were filmed on actual location at Nancy's birth place in Virginia and at Cliveden House, the Astor estate in England where she entertained many of her famous guests. Lisa Harrow in the title role gives an uneven performance coming across more convincingly when portraying the older Nancy. James Fox is also to be commended for his role as the kindly and understanding Waldorf. Unfortunately not out on video.

I'm giving this series a "6" because the acting and production standards are high. But this was the Masterpiece Theatre series that broke me of the habit of watching Masterpiece Theatre. It was one thing to watch a series about "The First Churchills" or "King Edward VII", because they were historical figures of importance. But Lady Astor? She was the first woman elected to be a member of Britain's Parliament, and was outspoken...some would say courageous. But she did not do anything of note - there is no major legislation connected to her. She was also wrong-headed. She was an anti-Semite and a member of the appeasement group known as "the Cliveden" set (named for the home of her and her husband, Cliveden, where the group met). Why honor her? My guess was that it seemed she was interesting, as she was of American birth and rose in British society. So what about that? I would have preferred a series of some other figure - if they had to do one on appeasers they could have done Nevil Chamberlain (Eric Porter did play him - rather sympathetically - in WINSTON CHURCHILL: THE WILDERNESS YEARS, with Robert Hardy as Churchill). Chamberlain had a career before 1938 when he did a series of government reforms on taxes and on simplifying the laws. Had he not got fooled by himself and Hitler at Munich he was trying to reform the British educational system. Now that actually is interesting. But Chamberlain had no American roots. It really was a waste of a series.