English
An Almost Christmas 2024 Story Torrent Link
31/19
Coincidentally, Aidan Turner has previously filmed at Chavenage House (The Priory in Rivals)
Story
Follow Rupert Campbell-Black and Tony Baddingham because they have a long-running rivalry that comes to a head. The same filming location was also used to stand in for Trenwith House in the 2015 BBC TV adaptation of Poldark.
This adaptation (one episode underway) seems to achieve this perfectly
So, obviously I read the book ages ago (it was like a rite of passage into adulthood in a certain time and place) and to be honest. I remember very little apart from the odd name (because some of Jilly’s creations were so de rigueur – Rupert Campbell Black says it all – and have somehow passed into the lexicon) but almost immediately I began, if I don’t recall the broad gist of the plot, to make synaptic contact with the intoxicating smell of YSL Opium while watching The Rivals.
It’s silly laughter rather than laughter and sass, not salaciousness
He quickly built the world: the 80s, the greedy Thatcher old men and the yuppies, the bored wives and the fearsome warriors, all treated like meat no matter what they did, the harmony, the cigars and the birds singing, the stratified English society, the UK in a globalised world trying to hammer nails at the top… and the socio-political commentary, while not put under your nose, is much clearer than when you read the books.
OK, it’s a bit of a pantomime, but why not?!
Maybe it’s because I’m older and have met more people that Cooper’s critique of British culture is more obvious, but I think it’s also the casting, the accents, the costumes – that bring out the habitus of each character (to quote Bordeau) and present them to the audience for consideration, admiration, denigration and/or excitement.
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