Mapp & Lucia

This series is priceless. I was very, very sorry to learn that there were only ten episodes.

I have never seen a series on television that makes me laugh out loud like this one. Those actors must have had a great time working together. Everyone did an amazing job. Lucia has the most wonderful mannerisms, as does Georgie.

Nigel Hawthorne? It took me a long time to believe that he was the same actor who starred in "Yes Minister". An actor who can do such a brilliant job in portraying those two opposite characters deserves my undying respect and admiration. Well done!

This series ranks right up there with the "House of Cards" trilogy as one that my wife and I will want to watch over and over through the years.

What a delightful portrayal of Mr. Brenson's works! One wishes that his entire series of books had been included; it would have been a plethora of riches indeed! Having recently had the great pleasure visiting Rye, It is now possible to immerse myself all the more completely into these tales! (Beautiful country, by the way!)

People seem to be trying to analyse this series to death, at the end of the day it is simply a wonderful comedy of manners, wonderfully acted and beautifully presented. The principles are all actors of great experience and charisma, working with almost infallible material. If you want slapstick or alternative humour, this is not the place for you! If you love watching a comedy where it is the actors who make the script brilliantly funny, rather than simply being given punchlines to deliver, then you should be in seventh heaven. Watch, relax, enjoy.

E.F. Benson could never have figured that his "Mapp & Lucia" novels would have been so deliciously brought to life by Channel Four, in the television series by the same name.

For those who are especially aware of the stock 1920-30's characters (with a Mayfair edge, particularly), "Mapp & Lucia" is a treat. From the soignee social arbiter, the tweedy local matron, the all-too-effeminate best friend (petit-point tatting in hand), the ironing-board thin outre artist (a nod to Radcliffe Hall) to the supporting cast of local dwellers, "Mapp & Lucia" revels in its atmospheric production.

When given the talents of Prunella Scales, Dame Geraldine McEwan and Sir Nigel Hawthorne, who play the title characters respectively (the latter, Georgino mio), it is little wonder that the shows transport one to the mignon village of Tilling, circa 1930. And the staging is so tongue-in-cheek, that certainly the Royal National would not have been ashamed to produce it. All in all, a curio of social manners set with more aplomb than "You rang, m'lord?" (1991) and more asperity than "Jeeves and Wooster" (1989) of the same ilk.

This was first shown on Channel 4 here in the UK in about 1985, I don't know if it was ever repeated. I missed it then and it wasn't until I read the books several years later that I started to look out for it. I recently got the entire series on video (would have been better on DVD) and it is a hoot.

The main characters were just as I pictured then and the casting was spot on. Geraldine McEwen (not yet a Dame alas, apropos a previous comment) and Nigel Hawthorne (who is indeed Sir Nigel) shine as Lucia and Georgie but perhaps they had easier characters to portray and it is Prunella Scales as Mapp who give the best and most difficult characterisation, though all the parts are really caricatures. Everyone must have had such fun making this and Lucia's costumes are something to behold.

The exteriors are mostly Rye in Sussex, where the author E.F. Benson lived (and was the Mayor). Lucia he probably based on himself, which begs the question who was Georgie in real life?!. You can go to the house he lived in which was clearly Mallards in the books and is now National Trust property. Henry James lived there before him. However, it wasn't used as the exterior here.

Some characters from the books are dropped in the series, the Padre's wife and the Wyses's daughter, but you don't miss them. Traces of McEewen's power mad and devious Lucia can be seen in her portrayal of the mad religous mother in 'Oranges are not the Only Fruit' (1990).

Sip tea and cakes with friends on a wet Sunday afternoon as you watch this - it'll cheer you up no end.