Act of Will

One of Barbara Taylor Bradford's quietly celebrated heart-warming tales Act of Will concerns the young orphan Audra. Forced into work by her greedy aunt and uncle Audra discovers a talent for nursing with her friend Gwen who is bold and brassy, the polar opposite to the shy and well spoken Audra the two friends both find love, Audra with the destitute Vincent Crowther and Gwen with Mike Leslie, whom she quickly drops in favour of the wealthy doctor Geoffrey Freemantle. Angered by her treatment of Billy, Vince makes it clear to his new wife Audra he has no time for Gwen and goes out of way to avoid her. But Audra had other things on her mind. She has just fallen pregnant and both parents to be are thrilled but Audra soon miscarries. Believing that a wife's duties begin in the bedroom Vince is soon getting intimate with his wife again, much to Audra discomfort his sexual appetite is insatiable. She soon falls pregnant gain this time delivering a child Christina who she dotes upon and raises to be an artist. Years later and free willed beauty Christina is preparing to tell her parents she had given up the career her mother sacrificed everything for her to have, in order to be a fashion designer. She is also secretly in love with Miles Sutherland a prominent politician and the two are deep in a passionate affair but it is threatened when Christina drops a bombshell on her lover that she is pregnant. Determined to keep the baby, Christina is delighted to have her lovers support but she is involved in a car crash which causes her to miscarry. Christina throws herself into her work in a bid to help her cope but she can't forget about her lost baby nor the fact that she increasingly has to share Miles with his controlling wife baby survive?

As with most made-for-tv romantic drama, the series just could not resist making plastic heroes of ordinary folks. The late-70s miniseries, namely Flambards, hit upon the notion of creating the unlikely heroine from a seamy, retching, and spiritually poisonous environment. It worked. Unfortunately, the heroine of Act of Will, namely Audra, seemed to carry the Puritan work ethic as a shield to protect against the phantasmal specter of complacency to fulfill maternal obligations. It worked--but for what reason? You mean she really did enslave herself to see to her daughter's success -- as a painter?? Did she really thought there existed scenery painters who were all cruising to brilliant, self-sustaining careers in the 20th century---in the era of television?? The first half of the series seemed to be setting up for the affair between Christina and the married Miles Sutherland--or haven't anyone noticed? This affair was supposed to be the spice of the drama. But, as with most romantic fiction, it failed to create depth for the characters (even the important ones)--which make them totally forgettable when the series ends. I suspect that the affair didn't get the attention the producers hoped for. The audience didn't really care. How could they?

We'll never know what really happened to Audra's brothers-- who were shipped to Australia after the death of their mother, nor the fate of Audra's granddaughter. I thought they would play a more pivotal part in the drama. The entire series was reduced to Christina and Miles' passionate love making while preaching the faults of instilling one's own will into a daughter. The latter is referenced as a sort of moral lesson by an elderly Audra at the beginning of the series. The series doggedly preaches to us that rich and successful folks are as weak and tormented as the rest of us---which must be a message to those of us living in the nether-dimensions. The series should've at least explained Christina's explosive success from such meager beginnings. This could have proven to be a good side plot-with a little more debauchery, corporate backstabbing, and a Bernie Madoff-like scam perpetrated here and there. Yet, its ultimate aim was to produce total fantasy, ending with the fantasy ultra-happy and ultra-loved coming to a fantasy end.

The original story by BTB showed a gutsy Audra thrown down the slippery-slope of high-style blue blood living to working class life among the blue collar folk.

It's a harsh spotlight on harsh realities but somehow when reading the book, you kept cheering for Audra.

However, Victoria Tennant completely wrecks this character with most boring blank performance. Everything is totally unbelievable. She just brought the usual one-dimension head-girl Victoria Tennant show and dampened a rather lively tale. Just hideous and makes you frustrated to watch. Now if Joan Collins had been forced to take on a working-class man ...!