The Young Visiters

I came to this sideways from the original novella, which was an absolute hoot. The film was a wonderful adaptation, pulling dialog directly from little Daisy's masterwork and adding to it in the same flavor. At once absurd and moving, it's the slightly wobbly story of an ordinary man who aspires to a higher station and the pretty girl desperate to hobnob among the nobility herself. They embark together, yet separately, and manage to achieve most of their ambitions, but not quite all they'd hoped. The characters are vivid and portrayed by top talent in Jim Broadbent, Lyndsey Marshal, Hugh Laurie, and Bill Nighy. They're all a bit dim-witted and bombastic, but you really feel for their ineptness. It's Broadbent's show—altho he has to fight off Nighy at times as the drunken, roguish earl. Simultaneously insightful (princes are ordinary people too) and oblivious (Ethel spends an awful lot of time alone with men she barely knows), The Young Visiters is both children's literature for adults and adult literature for children.

mikmiki, kindly keep your religious commentary to yourself. It has no place in a movie review. Thank you.

This is one of the most charming movies I've seen lately. I tried to get into the book, several times, but found it too twee.

Which is why I'm grateful for this film. More reasons to be grateful: Bill Nighy (whom I hadn't seen in anything other than "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest") and especially the incomparable Hugh Laurie tarten it up just enough.

Glorious period sets, costumes and landscapes. Makes you feel with good cause and certainty that there will indeed always be an England. Especially in the movies.

Just delightful.

Mr Alfred Salteena, "an elderly gentleman of forty-two", an ironmonger by trade, meets a young lady, Miss Ethel Monticue, on a train and promises to introduce her to the royals and nobles of his acquaintance if she comes to stay with him. What he doesn't tell her is that the sum total of his acquaintances is one, Lord Bernard Clark, who lives in a remote castle surrounded by portraits of his ancestors. Alfred engineers an invitation to stay with Lord Clark and Ethel is beside herself with excitement. Alfred soon realises that Bernard is much more the type of man Ethel is looking for, since he is after all a real Lord. Alfred wants to learn to be more suitable, and with Bernard's help, he begins training at Crystal Palace. The training regime is far from easy and some of the funniest and at the same time most poignant scenes are of Alfred's attempts to get it right. Things don't go according to plan, but it all turns out moderately all right in the end. No spoilers here, though. You'll just have to watch the film! The movie is a delight. If you like fairytales with a twist, you will enjoy the wonderful recreations of 9-year-old Daisy Ashford's idea of what the world looks like. And if you're a language person like me, you will be tickled by the dialogue. At 9 years old, Daisy Ashford must have been either an absolute darling or a real pain in the butt! Either way she created some very lovable characters and wrote a gem of a story.

Naming the original author of this work has been omitted, which is a shame because it makes the viewers understanding of the story all the more relevant.

"The Young Visitors: Or, Mr. Salteena's Plan" was written by nine-year-old Daisy Ashford in 1890 (yes, 1890!) and is an innocent yet inadvertently amusing spoof of Victorian society.

The following is a copy of the book review written by Terry Rose, grandson of Daisy Ashord, as appears on www.amazon.co.uk:

"My Grandmother, Daisy Ashford never set out to become an author, writing stories was entertainment for her and her sisters. Her writing "career" started at the age of 4 when she dictated The Life of Father McSwiney to her father and ended at the age of 14 with The Hangman's Daughter. Her best novel, The Young Visiters was written in 1890 when she was 9.

That it was published at all is almost as remarkable a story as the book itself. Daisy and her sisters came upon a bundle of notebooks neatly tied and stored whilst clearing their mother's house following her death. They found The Young Visiters so amusing Daisy sent it to a sick friend to cheer her up. She in turn passed it to Frank Swinnerton, a novelist and reader for Chatto and Windus who believed it could be successfully published. What followed would these days be thought of as clever marketing but in fact was quite unintentional back in 1919 when the book was first published. JM Barrie agreed to write the preface and an amazed public, unable to accept that a 9 year old could have possibly written it assumed that Dsiy did not exist and that Barrie was the author. This resulted in huge amounts of publicity on both sides of the Atlantic and The Young Visiters immediately became a bestseller. Daisy, always shy and modest had to take to giving readings in London to dispell the myth that Barrie was the author. The Young Visiters has remained in print (Daisy's other stories have been published over the years but none has been as popular) and become widely loved. Other reviewers here have written better than I could about the charm of the little book. The BBC have just made it into a wonderful film, with Patrick Barlow's screenplay capturing the magic of Daisy's writing. We visited the set whilst they were filming at St Paul's Cathedral, the cast were captivated by the book. I think everyone will be."

Pay attention to minor roles of servants and royals...the gem within a gem. As was the introduction to the regal beale.

As expected , the bar is set by the major performances of nighy, broadbent, and beale. Laurie was just a step behind.

Which leaves us to the lone disappointment of marshal, who kept the plot going but just unable to keep pace with those at the pinnacle of dry british comedy.

Had they put beale as a key guest in the tiresome wedding scene, another star point was imminent.