Cold Comfort Farm

I was astonished and delighted to discover, quite by chance, that the BBC's 1971 production of Cold Comfort Farm was available on tape. Ironic that it should only be available in American format!The dramatisation of a favourite novel is seldom received with unreserved pleasure by aficionados, but I well remember my own wholehearted delight in this particular instance.

Comparisons are odious, of course, but I felt John Schlesinger's more recent film lacked the rawness and anarchy of Peter Hammond's production – I found it altogether too picturesque. I also sorely missed Joan Bakewell's narration, which so successfully incorporated, in the earlier version, the wonderful purple passages of Stella Gibbons prose. For me nothing could equal Alastair Sim's extraordinary performance as the tortured Amos, nor surpass Rosalie Crutchley's interpretation of the bereft and despairing Cousin Judith. Definitive too, is the imperturbable normalcy of Sarah Badel's Flora Post, especially in the chaotic and violent scene of Ada Doom's Counting! I originally saw the production in black and white, which I think might have been a plus – I found the colour insipid rather than atmospheric – but I highly recommend this production to any Cold Comfort Farm enthusiast!

See the wonderful 1995 movie version instead! I'm a big fan of British comedy and drama, and of the early 1970's Masterpiece Theater series that ran on PBS. However this early TV version is an absolute train-wreck of a production; everything about it is really bad. Those involved seem to have been watching too many Fellini films and seen too many stage productions of Marat/Sade, and thought it would be a fun idea to try incorporating a similar approach here. The result is a bizarre and amusingly unwatchable mess.

I was very much looking forward to seeing this. The cast looked very promising (especially Alastair Sim) and the BBC has a high reputation when bringing classic literature to the screen.

Somehow, somewhere, it all went wrong. Even by the standards of 1968 it is obviously studio bound, and the sets are so cramped you never get the idea of the farmhouse as a house, just the corner of a room here, a gate in the farmyard there. The camera set-ups are such that the main action always seems to be obscured by something in the foreground. The director also seems to be well on-board with the 60's 'sexual revolution' (basically people stopped hiding what they'd been doing anyway) and we are treated to shots of 'ploughing' (fnrr-fnrr) cut with a woman writhing in ecstasy in the main titles. There's also a bit of a manure fetish going on for some reason.

I was disappointed in the performances, which are too broad. The Starkadders are grotesques, but they need to be kept within bounds or they just look silly. There is so much ranting and raving in the first episode that it isn't so much funny as tiresome, especially by Billy Russell. Even Alastair Sim only gets into his stride during the sermon to the Quivering Brethren in part two. Sarah Badel is a bright and level-headed Flora, and Rosalie Crutchley makes a good Judith, but not enough to surpass the hint of madness in Eileen Atkins' eyes in the Schlesinger version.

It's not just the age of the production which is the problem here, it's the tricksiness of the director and his indulgence of the actors. I give it six stars because Alastair Sim is in it, but even he is not at his best.

While there are some strong performances, the crude production values and chaotic direction make this show truly painful to watch. Zooming the lens in and out "real fast" is the sort of thing people did with Super 8 cameras 45 years ago, but it was hardly funny then and is sort of pathetic today. The later film is, by contrast, a real pleasure. Much of the 1968 production calls to mind Monty Python at their worst, which puts to question what it is trying to achieve. We could not make it past the first of the three episodes. There are some solid acting performances (Alistair Sims is terrific, and Sarah Badel does a fine job) -- which is the only reason I have not given this film an "awful" rating. It is, however, awful, and I could not wait for it to be over. What is truly unfortunate is that the later version with Kate Beckinsale is very well done, and this show may discourage viewers from watching it. Skip the '68 show; watch the film.

Stella Gibbons' 'Cold Comfort Farm' is one of the classics of parody, and this version with Alastair Sim, Rosalie Crutchley, Fay Compton, Sarah Badel, Brian Blessed, Aubrey Morris and Peter Egan does it justice. Very 1960s in its outlook it is well played and written and has just the right hint of madness. Badel in particular as Flora Poste is note perfect.

Compared with the version with Kate Beckinsale this is much better, and deserves to be seen more widely. Although a VHS did come out in the USA, maybe a DVD beckons from the BBC? It should fit well alongside other classics adapted around the same time, and as it is in colour should find a wide audience.