Love For Lydia - Complete [1977]

This is a very slow exploration of love from lots of different angles with the eponymous heroine Lydia being a pivot but not the whole story. As others have described, Lydia (Mel Martin) is a young girl who moves to Evensford to be cared for by her aunts after her father dies. She is not only lovely to look at but capricious and fascinating. Mel Martin plays her brilliantly. She has a slightly vixen-ish quality to her teeth and face and has the capacity to convey something of the wild about her, while still being lovely to look at. She is loved by four young men. The self-destructive Alex (Jeremy Irons), the thoroughly decent Ton Holland (Peter Davison), the darkly faithful Blackie (Ralph Arliss) and the 'Observer' Richardson (Christopher Blake). Each represents a different aspect of love and pain, and for each, her feelings are different. As a viewer you are not quite sure who she really loves. Blackie certainly not. He is a tool that she ultimately abuses, but with Alex there is a meeting of the minds, with Tom perhaps a discovery of joy and freedom, with Richardson, first love or was it someone to take the journey towards adulthood with?On the side, there are a number of other love stories. Two in particular focus around Richardson, one involving Nancy Holland (Sherrie Hewson) and the other a London bookkeeper. In the first case, one aches for youth and the pain of loving always and forever when that love is not returned, indeed sometimes trampled on, in the other, one sees empowerment coupled with short-term pain from recognising right at the beginning that this is one passion that is going nowhere. Many viewers will relate to both situations!The production was very slow. Almost unbearably so initially - three episodes about falling in love doing ice skating (not very convincingly by the way). However, once the ice-skating was out of the way, things picked up and I was glad I stuck with it to the end. There was much to relate to, and much to think about. For me, the question was, who did Lydia really love apart from herself? Actually who did Richardson love apart from himself? Both seemed to me to be staggeringly selfish and blind to others. Ironically, Lydia seemed far more aware and perceptive than the Observer Richardson.The staging of the production was generally excellent (apart from the ice-skating) but the acting could be a bit uneven.All the central men with the exception of Ralph Arliss were rather wooden at times. In the case of Christopher Blake, I was not quite sure if that was on purpose. It did convey a sense of a writer going through the motions, while actually functioning on another plane, busy observing and collecting impressions for his work. His acting brings a kind of ambiguity to the end. Ralph Arliss was consistently excellent. I totally believed in him. He started out a rather angry proud Heathcliff-esque, but life treated him badly, and he quietly accepted the restrictions of his class. Both Mel Martin and Sherrie Hewson were pure genius. Mel Martin was wholly fascinating and I could believe the young men would have flocked to her despite all her selfish capriciousness. Sherrie Hewson on the other hand conveys everything of the thoroughly decent unappreciated country girl. You can see all her true loveliness which Richardson is blind to. As a viewer I ached for her and wanted to smack Richardson for hurting her so relentlessly. Apart from the central characters, there are some unforgettable performances from Michael Aldridge (Rollo, Lydia's alcoholic hated but somehow wise and suffering uncle), and Beatrice Lehman and Rachel Kempson (Lydia's two eccentric aunts). These three characters intrigued me and kept me watching. I wanted to know more about them but of course they are stories past and cannot be known by the Observer.Overall, this would not be among my top favorite serials from the 70s, and I initially wondered if I would survive to the end. Did I mention it is very slow! :-). There are some dramatic moments, but they are brushed over quickly, in favor of showing the interrelations among the characters. I was left with food for thought about how people treat each other and had enough food for thought to feel the time spent watching feel worthwhile, and I would not say this would be everybody's cup of tea.

Love For Lydia is one of the best drama series you will ever buy; it is also exceptional value for money. This television adaptation of H.E. Bate's best novel is old-school television production of the highest quality. Made in 1977 it is organised into thirteen episodes on six discs and lasts for 650 minutes - almost 11 hours of top quality entertainment. H.E. Bates is a modern writer - he died in 1974 - and is England's most underrated and prolific writer.While I say he is a modern writer, in terms of the time in which he lived, in style, he belongs to a different generation. He is, essentially, a pastoral writer, writing with great detail and authority about the English countryside.Love For Lydia is set in `Edensford' a small town in the English Midlands. The arrival of Lydia, a neice of the wealthy Aspen Family and a young, gauche and seemingly fragile young woman, brings substantial and tragic change to the lives of others in the small semi-rural community, as she interacts with the others with whom she comes into contact. The story begins in the 1920s at the hight of gay young things and the `flapping' dance craze. Lydia, an amoral, hedonistic `butterfly, flits between the young men she encounters, causing jealously, fist fights, pledges of love, broken hearts and death. As a person, we should despise her and her worthless `high-society' type. As a character, brilliantly played by Mel Martin we love, hate and above all are utterly captivated by her - exactly the effect she must have had on the young men she encountered. Martin gives the performance of a lifetime in the lead role and how this actress did not go on to dominate stage, film and television, I will never understand. Other lead roles are played by Christopher Blake, Peter Davidson and Jeremy Irons. The casting of the lead roles is spot on. The quality of acting is high, the scripts very well edited and the settings expertly chosen. Whoever comissioned and produced this series should be congratulated for allowing this complex novel to unwind in a leisurely fashion without cutting too many corners. It is as good a TV adaptation as there has ever been.Five stars doen not begin to do justice to this series. Graeme Greene described H.E. Bates as `Britain's successor to Checkov'. In fact, he is more accurately described as the lineal successor to Thomas Hardy, though a writer of far greater range than Hardy. Love For Lydia is outstanding. While you are buying the DVD, treat yourself to a copy of the novel. Read the novel first - if you can bare putting off the viewing for a while. This is a purchase to completely delight.Buy this DVD.