Press Archive

TV Guide
5-11 October 2002
by Matt Roush

The Roush Review

A Saga That Sizzles

Masterpiece Theatre revisits a lavish Golden-age Dynasty

My first memories of public TV date back to the late ’60s and The Forsyte Saga. Though I was a bit too young to understand everything those tormented Forsytes were up to, all of that repressed Victorian lust definately left an impression.

Some things never change. When PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre announced a new eight-hour version of John Galsworthy’s Forsyte Saga, I couldn’t resist.

This marvelously cast and swiftly paced adaptation lives up to the reputation of the first. It’s the year’s best miniseries, a completely addictive study of desire and power.

Central to the conflicts is the chilly figure of Soames Forsyte (Band of Brother’s excellent Damian Lewis), who views the love of his life, the elusive Irene (Gina McKee), as yet another acquisition. Her refusal to share this pitiable monster’s affections bedevils him through the years.

Irene’s great love is the architect Bosinney (Horatio Hornblower’s charismatic Ioan Gruffudd), who builds a counrty estate that symbolizes all of the family’s thwarted yearnings and ironic misfortunes.

Corin Redgrave is especially poignant as Old Jolyon Forsyte, who rejects his namesake bohemian son (Rupert Graves) and learns to embrace life in the twilight of his years.

The Forsyte Saga isn’t just great period drama. It’s great drama, period.

Modern Victorians

Thought those 19th-century Brits were a stuffy lot? Think again. Thirty-three years after The Forsyte Saga became an instant classic, PBS presents a lush new version that exposes messy lives and sexual intrigue beneath the elegant facade.

When the original television adaptation of The Forsyte Saga was braodcast in England in 1967, churches rescheduled their Sunday-night services rather than risk empty pews.

After ins 1969 debut in the U.S.- long before the Ewings and Carringtons captivated viewers with their tales of power, money and lust- the Forsyte family sparked what novelist James A. Michener described in TV Guide as “a madness which gripped a large part of the world.”

Now PBS hopes that a new mini-series based on John Glasworthy’s nearly century-old series of nine novels about Victorian England’s upper crust will spark another craze, even when it airs against another family drama about power, money and lust: HBO’s The Sopranos. But what this British import lacks in Bada Bing! babes and bloody mob hits, it makes up for in forbidden love and tragic death.

In eight hours spanning seven consecutive Sunday nights, desire will battle duty as the aristocratic Londoners pursue their passions, risking shame on the Forsyte name. The first episode opens with Young Jolyon Forsyte’s (Rupert Graves) announcement that he will leave his wife and daughter for the woman he truly loves, his child’s governess. His stunning revelation sets the stage for a sequence of conflicts that will threaten the very core of the venerable family as the 20th century approaches.

With such universal themes, why not just rebroadcast the original? “Television has changed so much,” says Rebecca Eaton, executive producer of Masterpiece Theatre, which coproduced the remake (in fact, the first Forsyte Saga inspired the very creation of Masterpiece Theatre, PBS’s showcase for British dramas). “In the old days, watching The Forsyte Saga was a very, uh, relaxing experience.” In other words, the 26-part, black-and-white version has been traded in for a steamy, streamlined $10 million epic.

The cast is led by British actor Damain Lewis (HBO’s Band of Brothers), who lends an icy magnetism to his portrayal of Soames Forsyte, Young Jolyon’s cousin. But Lewis was no shoo-in to play the not-so-ideal husband to the beautiful Irene (Gina McKee). “I had pictured Soames dark-haired,” says Eaton, who differed with producer Sita Williams over casting the redheaded actor. “He was not what I had in mind.” Lucky for Lewis, Williams prevailed.

Unlike the original, this Saga presents only the first two novels of Galsworthy’s series, rather than six at once, as was done in the ’60s. So fans who recall Soames’s determined daughter Fleur (Susan Hampshire) from the first version must wait at least until fall 2003, when the second, six-hour installment airs, for her character to emerge.

In the meantime, there are plenty of other characters to keep track of. Here, we present Soames and the rest of the main players in this extended-family drama.

Damian Lewis as Soames Forsyte

If Irene is its heart, Soames is the series’s smoldering soul. At first enchanted and then obsessed by Irene, Soames will stop at nothing to make her love him.

You may remember Lewis as: the noble American major Richard D. Winters in HBO’s Band of Brothers. Soames syndrome: “It’s exhausting to play him, given his lack of smiling and general sense of humor,” says Lewis. “But he lightens up a little bit in [next year's] series because of his infatuation with his daughter [Fleur].”

How much of Lewis is in Soames? “Holy Moses! Is he like me? No, I like to think of myself as a little lighter than he is. But I understand elements of emotional repression. I think my friends might accuse me of that.”

What’s next? Saga, part 2; also, Stephen King’s “Dreamcatcher.” in theaters February 2003, with Morgan Freeman. Jason Lee and fellow Brother Donnie Wahlberg. “[The movie] requires you to find some parallel universe and try to get to grips with Stephen King’s head.” International man of history: Lewis just finished filming the BBC TV-movie Jeffery Archer-The Truth with Greta Scacchi, about the British novelist and politico. “I love that I can have a career in England and in America,” Lewis says. “I can be in L.A. and hang out with all my friends from Band of Brothers. It makes it more my home.”