Cider with Rosie

A truly magical production, enjoyed all the more for not being encumbered with an all-star cast (although Samantha Morton was rather wonderful as the author's mother, Annie, and Timothy Spall rolled his 'r's in an authentic Gloucestershire accent, narrating with excerpts taken directly from the book as the author himself).

The film was dotted with cameos, perhaps most notably Annette Crosbie as Granny Trill, and there are lots of recognizable faces, but the whole cast performed their tasks in an understated and businesslike fashion-a large cast, as the film dips in and out of different periods of the author's early life in a seemingly random fashion, reminiscent of the book upon which it was based.

Quite how the production team managed to return Slad (the actual village where Lee grew up) to its pre-war look, I have no idea, but it worked beautifully, and the English countryside never looked more alluring. When Lee published Cider With Rosie in 1959, he acknowledged that this world had already passed us by forever, so to re-create it for a Sunday night TV drama was no mean feat...

The costumes were right, the language was right-even the slang, and there was just the right amount of magic dust sprinkled throughout the whole film...

Cider With Rosie used to be part of every English schoolboy's literary canon, but has recently fallen out of favour. I hope there were enough English Literature teachers watching who remember how good & enjoyable a work this is, and will start setting it again as a required text. I know this was part of a short season of BBC modern literary dramatizations, but I hope that in this case, the BBC might consider commissioning an adaptation of the sequel, 'As I Stepped Out One Midsummer's Morning', which has been woefully neglected over the years...

All in all, a marvellous production, not to be missed-it has, in one stroke, re-established my faith in BBC drama... For those of you yet to see it-I'm jealous!..

Too many flashbacks. For a little while they are young kids. Then teens etc. Then go back to young kids & then teens. It was like following a bouncing ball

This story of a life in simpler times, was magical.

It reminded me of how busy we've all got, and how we've lost the connection to community and nature with our busy city lives.

The movie sits in a time between the two world wars, and shows the strength of women, and the family bond.

This is a simple movie. Not one with outstanding acting or huge moments. It is slowly told, with sincerity and an eye for the beauty in moments.

Take some time to escape, and soak in this magical story

Philippa Lowthorpe's production used a three-level narrative to tell Laurie Lee's charming story of growing up in the First World War and beyond. The adult Laurie Lee (Timothy Spall) read extracts from the source-text in voice-over, setting the story in context and explaining why certain incidents were important. The narrative oscillates between the middle of the First World War when the young Lol (Georgie Smith) goes to school for the first time and tries to respond to the events around him; and the postwar era when the older Loll (Archie Cox) copes with adolescence and his sexual feelings for Rosie (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis). The unifying element between the two narratives was Annie, Laurie's mother (Samantha Morton), charged with the responsibility of bringing up a large family on her own.

This CIDER WITH ROSIE worked hard to recreate life in a small village in which everyone "looked after their own," as the adult Lee put it. Everyone knows everyone else, which has its disadvantages as well as its advantages. The adolescent Loll discovers this to his cost in school when his nascent romantic feelings become a subject for class ribaldry. On the other hand the class discover some kind of strength in community, especially when it comes to rebelling against sadistic teacher Miss Buckley (Sarah Sweeney). In one climactic sequence Spadge Hopkins (Jack Harris) picks the teacher up and places her on the desk in front of the class to almost universal acclaim.

Life might have been idyllic for the young Loll, but uncomfortable reality keeps breaking in. Director Lowthorpe is very good at emphasizing the contrast between the child Loll playing soldiers with a piece of wood and a colander on his head, and the genuine fear of deserter James (Billy Howle) as he tries to conceal himself from the military police. Loll has no real idea what is going on, as witnessed in the sequence where James is finally arrested, and the little boy wails: "I didn't tell them!"

The production contains two comic cameos from June Whitfield and Annette Crosbie as the two grannies living on their own at the top and bottom of a house and communicating with one another by banging their sticks on the floor. The young Loll has a particularly touching moment with Granny Trill (Crosbie), who keeps playing with her hair, when he implies that she is wearing a wig. The child's ingenuousness exposes adult pretensions.

The climax of the production comes when the adolescent Loll and Rosie hide under a cart to drink cider. This is the moment when they finally discover the pleasures of sexual contact, as well as drinking alcohol. Although it is only a fleeting moment, never to be repeated, it is an ecstatic one: Loll lies down in a filthy puddle, his clothes saturated in mud, and recalls the feelings associated with it.

CIDER WITH ROSIE is not particularly dramatic, but its evocation of a lost world is both touching and nostalgic. All credit to everyone involved in this charming production.

Jack Harris' distinction of Spadge Hopkin is nothing short of a master piece - his magnum opus. I laughed I wept and I had goose bumps throughout. Every time he was on screen the atmosphere change, cold...but in a kind of rock n roll way. Jack, young and green, portrays the Victoria secondary school bully in a complicated and endearing rollercoaster - considering he was only 13 when filmed, it's incredible. Safe to say this young buck has a bright future ahead of him.

Jack Harris' distinction of Spadge Hopkin is nothing short of a master piece - his magnum opus. I laughed I wept and I had goose bumps throughout. Every time he was on screen the atmosphere change, cold...but in a kind of rock n roll way. Jack, young and green, portrays the Victoria secondary school bully in a complicated and endearing rollercoaster - considering he was only 13 when filmed, it's incredible. Safe to say this young buck has a bright future ahead of him.