Chelworth

Chelworth tracked the efforts of Michael Anstey (Peter Jeffrey) to make a financial success of running his family estate, restore its historic house and keep his family together. This was a suspenseful, intelligent and entertaining drama, co-written by John Hawkesworth (Upstairs, Downstairs and The Duchess of Duke Street). While not particularly deep, the social observation of 1980's ostentation and mores was quite acute. Among a strong cast, which included Phyllida Law, Martin Jarvis and James Villiers, I vividly remember Gemma Jones' beautifully restrained performance as the long-suffering Virginia Anstey.

Having recorded the series, I lent out the tape and never got it back. Unfortunately it does not yet appear to have been released on VHS or DVD but it deserves to be made available.