I’ve categorised this entry as “Films/DVD” but I was watching my videos. I got the video set of Fortunes of War years ago (the pre-copyright tape suggests a duplication date in 1998), undoubtedly in an HMV sale, but never got around to watching them. Of course I watched the series when it was first broadcast in 1987. I was maybe even mildly obsessed by it. I read Olivia Manning’s original books – The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy – that told the story of Guy and Harriet Pringle as they moved around Europe trying to stay one step ahead of the Germans during the Second World War. I’ve even got the 12″ single of the theme tune.
This production was the BBC’s big autumn drama series for 1987, and starred Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson who were to marry and become Britain’s number one pair of theatrical luvvies. But put aside any preconceptions that last sentence may conjour up. This is a wonderful portrait of an other-worldly English language lecturer and his wife as they begin married life first in Bucharest and then slowly have to move first to Athens and then to Cairo. There’s a wealth of colourful characters who move in their circles. Including the Irish Russian Prince Yakimov, the diplomat par excellence Dobson, Byronnic expert Professor Lord Pinkerton, poet Castlebar, and many many more. Many of the characters are absurd, and Harriet is forever just stopping short of having affairs with various English servicemen.
The production didn’t seem to want for money, and the locations are spectacular – not least the various scenes that take place around the pyramids and in Luxor. The hotels that are stayed in are the kinds of hotels we all wish we could stay in permamently with their always-open English Bars and the like.
If it hadn’t been for the need for sleep, I’d have probably watched all five hours in one go, instead of the two chunks it did take me.
The only disappointment was that the videos I’ve got are edited into one long chunk with the final credits at the end of the second tape. That’s a shame because you don’t hear the main theme enough, and almost certainly, we’re missing some lingering scene-settings that are probably chopped out. Some day I suspect this’ll come out on DVD and these thing’s will be righted.