The Camomile Lawn

The Camomile Lawn is one of my favorite British TV adaptations. It's based on a book by Mary Wesley, and was first shown in 1992. The director is Sir Peter Hall who founded both the National Theatre and the RSC. There are five episodes and it's compulsive viewing.

It's a family drama set during the early years of World War II. In the last episode the characters meet at a funeral thirty years later, giving it similarities to the Big Chill. The main characters are seven cousins / friends who spend part of their summers in Cornwall at the home of Aunt Helena (Felicity Kendall) and Uncle Richard (Paul Eddington). The story begins in August 1939, before the Germans invade Poland. The friends, are mostly 18 or 19 and join the war effort when war is declared. The action then moves to London during the Blitz. The young cast all have an abundance of energy and charisma, especially Jennifer Ehle (Young Calypso), Tara Fitzgerald (Young Polly)and Rebecca Hall (Young Sophy).

Philip Larkin famously said that sexual intercourse began in 1963, but he needed to get out more. With death all around them, the lead characters live for today and take a hedonistic approach to sex and booze. As the older Polly says (Virginia McKenna) "it was a happy time."

Mary Wesley creates strong female characters who all seem wise, pragmatic and fun. The men mostly seem flawed and weak in some way. They are either dim-witted, obsessed with sex or confused about what they want. Eddington (Uncle Richard) is regarded by his family as something of a joke. Toby Stephens (Young Oliver) plays a left wing idealist who serves in the Spanish Civil War, lusts after Jennifer Ehle and complains about spending his army career running away from the Germans. Oliver Cotton (Max) plays a violinist who escapes from the clutches of the Nazis in Vienna and chases after the entire female cast.

In Episode Five we meet older versions of the characters, including: Oliver (Richard Johnson), Sophy (Claire Bloom) and Calypso (Rosemary Harris)who talk about their past. Overall, it's fun, fast paced, beautifully written and brilliantly directed.

Unforgettable adaptation of Mary Wesley's novel about a social circle in WWII - featuring affairs, incest and wife-swapping: "an immensely happy time", says one of the women, of the Blitz. Yet the series is far from tawdry. Like Calypso - the character everyone remembers - The Camomile Lawn is gorgeous to watch; glamorous; obsessed with sex; but slowly proves to have hidden depths and a strong, if unconventional, morality. Jennifer Ehle proves herself one of the sexiest figures to have been seen on screen, and a classic and classy actress to boot.

A story about a family (and associated friends) where most of the characters are either selfish or inadequate seems an unlikely hit, but I continue to find this one of my favorite winter evening viewings. The story is told, as in the book, with flash-forwards that help crystallize your opinions of the characters and their motivations. With promiscuous behavior throughout, various unconventional relationships (Polly and the twins, Max and his town wife/country wife etc), it would have been all too easy for the series to dissolve into an orgy of explicit sex; this was, after all, made by Channel 4, who can teach HBO a thing or too about the subject! It runs along a pace, and as each episode ends, the temptation to just press play and watch the next is strong.

The performances are wonderful. I loved Felicity Kendall as the bad-tempered matriarch in the flash-forwards. Jennifer Ehle is, of course, delectable, and completely gorgeous, and acts the pants off everyone. Her accent is a wonderful mids-40s upper-class English, taken straight from Brief Encounter and the like. I didn't realize until today that she was born in North Carolina, I had her marked an English rose! Tara Fitzgerald plays Polly, the most likable character, a strong, self-minded and tolerant person. The male characters are weaker, but Oliver Cotton and the late Paul Eddington make the best of the material they're given.

The production is great - period detail is excellent, although perhaps the grimness of war on the Home Front is not given enough emphasis. However, these are privileged people, they would have had it better than the masses simply because they had more to start with.

You can watch this series over and over, like rereading a favorite book.

With a strong cast headed by two of the stars of the Britcom classic "Good Neighbors" and a rash of complaints from Netflix members about nudity, "smut" and depravity, this '92 UK series seemed like a sureshot. Based on a novel by the renegade daughter of an old-school military family, it's a brisk, gossipy account of the martial, marital and extramarital adventures of an extended family of cousins in the early years of WW II. The Martha Stuarty title might be misleading; the lawn in question adjoins a cliffside house in Cornwall that belongs to most of the other characters' Aunt Helena (Felicity Kendal!), the exasperated wife of Uncle Richard (Paul Eddington!), a cranky, appeasement-minded, one-legged veteran of "the last show" (WW I). Also in residence is Sophy (an amazing debut performance by 11-year-old Rebecca Hall), a sensitive younger cousin who's being raised, haphazardly, by Richard and Helena. It's true that some of the characters, in their youthful self-involvement, can be a bit much (notably flashy, posh-voiced Calypso, a nice juicy part for Jennifer Ehle), but the series is consistently involving and occasionally quite moving. Paul Eddington totally nails a scene in which Richard, portrayed as a squawking grotesque till then, discusses sex and marriage with Calypso in a sweetly unguarded way; the last episode, set in the 1970s—by which time adorable Sophy has grown up to be a cranky Claire Bloom—is watchable but disappointing.

Let's get the obvious out of the way first , Jennifer Ehle is GORGEOUS , so excuse me if i seem biased! Set during the war , a family with a strange besotment with the smell of their yard (?) are thrown in to a sea of love , hate and torrid affairs! The acting is absoloutely priceless throughout with everyone doing a marvellous job! Only problem is , where can i get it on VHS or DVD? A fantastic drama , a treat for all!