Life in Squares

Life In Squares

It was a dreadful rambling mess that just amounted to self-indulgence. The lives of the Bell's and the Woolf's was just so tedious and yet we had no sense of all the work they did and the money they made opening companies and creating books, paintings and designs.

With regard to their "shocking" lives, perhaps unconventional for the time but surely not for a group of artists. It was a really nothing more than commune living.

We spent half our time trying to work out who was who as we had two sets of actors playing the parts of the characters at different ages. The script was clunky and the emotions, at best, superficial.

I'm giving this a 4 outta 10, but my advice skip the whole series as it was rubbish!

This series comes across as bits and pieces of lives of the Bloomsbury Group that has been loosely strung together on a very hurried timeline. There is little in the way of character development or much continuity. Seems to just be a collection of snippets and vignettes. The actors do what they can with the weak script and superficial dialog but it just fails to ring true in any way.

I recorded this mini series because being a fan of Woolf's writing and being interested in Keynes I was interested in the topic. I delayed watching it because of the potential for lascivious sexism and cliché I have observed in other artistic works regarding the Bloomsbury set.

I started watching it when I was ill and was gripped. I like the way the author focused on Vanessa Bell and the avoidance of sexist representations of the women, as is so often the case, especially where there is a break from accepted relationship convention.

I was so glad the author just introduced some characters by name and didn't over explain who everyone was and list their achievements. Unlike a previous reviewer I was glad the snobbishness and self importance and flaws of individuals was not written out.

I particularly enjoyed the inclusion of angelica's experience. This took the examination of the group far beyond previous works I have encountered, giving the story some real emotional meaning.

Over all this series seemed to me to be an exploration of relationships. It reminded me of Phillip Larkin's poem of parenthood.

Given that this short series involves quite a few flashbacks and a relatively large cast of characters, the choice to have different actors play the "younger" and "older" versions of some of them really doesn't help, I think. Not only does this make it hard sometimes to work out who they are, but it leads to harsh comparisons of the performance (and in some cases the looks) of a few of them. Apart from the children, this would have been better done with make-up, I feel. In particular, Phoebe Fox is so great as Vanessa Bell that she is sorely missed in episode three. No offence to Eve Best, but she comes across as a completely different person - not only does she look nothing like Fox, but Vanessa feels "gone".

Having said that, it was nice not to have painful and protracted exposition of who all these people were, as collectively there would have been too much to fit in - and the series would have felt even more episodic than it sometimes does. As it is, the classic period drama cliches of "terrible things happening far away" are present and correct, as are their very real tragic effects, but the underlying aura of very privileged people playing around lingers.

Worth a look - although really only a 6 out of 10, IMHO. I gave it the 7th for Phoebe.

Life in Squares is a confusing and dull three part period drama about the tangled love affairs of the Bloomsbury Group.

Virginia (Lydia Leonard) married Leonard Woolf (Al Weaver) who soon realises that she is mentally fragile, while her sister Vanessa (Phoebe Fox) turned her affections towards Duncan Grant (James Norton) who teams up with her and his male lover. In fact Grant is the love and leave em kind when it comes to male relationships.

As the drama progresses the younger actors are replaced by an older set of actors and the Bloomsbury group attitude towards free love and creativity gets bleaker as World War Two approaches and losses are felt.

Amanda Coe's script was not easy to follow and seemed sparse which explains why I felt bored and listless.

Scandinavian director Simon Kaijser goes for Nordic noir pacing and a murky look which did not work for this three parter that needed to be faster moving and brighter.