by Anthony Trollope
Dramatised for television in six episodes by Marjorie Deans
At the Great House at Allington, Squire Dale is entertaining his nephew and the elegant and newly arrived Mr. Crosbie. Across the garden, at the Small House, Bell and Lily Dale live with their mother.
[Photo caption] Left to right: John Robinson, Barry Letts, Shirley Lawrence, Frederick Jaeger, and Miranda Connell
A new serial based on the novel by Anthony Trollope
'Of course there was a Great House at Allington,' says Trollope, setting the scene for one of his well-known and well-loved Barsetshire novels. 'How otherwise should there have been a Small House?' And he goes on to tell his readers that in the eyes of Hopkins, the gardener, the two houses were ' all one place,' the property of his master, Squire Dale of Allington.
The story follows the fortunes and misfortunes of the Squire's pretty nieces, Bell and Lily Dale, who live with their mother in the Small House, and of their several suitors: the struggling young doctor, James Crofts, unwavering in his love for Bell; her cousin, Captain Bernard Dale, whom the Squire intends her to marry; Adolphus Crosbie, the handsome, sophisticated Apollo, whom Lily enjoys teasing, till she discovers what it means to fall in love ; and her humble coltish adorer, Johnny Eames-said to be a youthful self-portrait of Trollope himself-who surprises everyone by emerging as a high-spirited, hot-blooded hero.
In spite of its many lively ups-and-downs, the whole book has such a deceptive air of rustic tranquility that it comes almost as a shock to discover the underlying drama of domestic revolt and upheaval, with the ladies of the Small House rising in open rebellion against the established order of masculine property and power. This age-old tyranny is personified by the Squire himself, who occupies the Great House while allowing his brother's widow and two daughters to live rent-free in the Small one. There is a certain politely-concealed antagonism between old Dale and his sister-in-law; but he is genuinely fond of his attractive nieces, and it is not until he tries to influence their choice of husbands that the division between the two households widens into a chasm.
This is a happy story, full of the easy leisure and laughter of English country-house life as it was lived a century ago; but in its telling, something of the turmoil that heralded the bursting of feminine bonds and conventions in the generation that followed is convincingly revealed.
(Marjorie Deans)
At 8.0 Tonight
