Playall instead of seasonplay
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My anxiety spiked almost immediately with the introduction of Siegfried, one of literature’s most gloriously contradictory and memorable characters. Such pleasures, however, were regularly shattered by incidents that had been, as I noted to myself with growing rage, wrenched from their original context and brutally massaged into compliance with larger story lines.Īnd, more important, as I informed my increasingly alarmed family, by main characters that bore the names James Herriot the writer had given them and very little else. Pumphrey, whose lavish attention to her over-pampered Pekingese provides sharp contrast with the mucky reality of farm life, where an ailing animal can ruin the family fortune. Humor and gentle drama infuse the trials of this James Herriot (Nicholas Ralph), who, as the new veterinary assistant to Siegfried Farnon (Samuel West), must navigate the unfamiliar terrain of the fictional town of Darrowby in the early 1940s.Īs an added pleasure, Ralph gives Herriot a fine Glasgow accent, which the books, written in the King’s English, did not, and Diana Rigg puts in one last wonderful performance as the iconic Mrs. To be sure, there is peace and joy to be found in the wide, swooping shots of the Yorkshire countryside, the period outerwear and the variety of animals, which outnumber the human cast. But where the literary “All Creatures Great and Small,” along with its many sequels, was a panoramic portrait of a certain time and place, this version is essentially an alternative family drama with ailing cows, suspicious farmers and a lot of pub scenes. I’ve watched too many of the best minds of my generation fall into nitpicking hysteria over the necessary changes every adaptation requires, I told myself calmly, to count on a replication of the magic, pathos and hilarity of the book, especially given my bone-deep personal relationship to it.īut I did expect it to at least resemble the book on which it is based, in tone and intention if not fan-scrupulous detail. And as with any adaptations of Dickens, I went into “All Creatures Great and Small” with the knowledge that it could not include all or even most of them. Like Charles Dickens, Herriot was able to breathe life into an astounding assortment of disparate characters, often engaged in unforgettable incidents.
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For their celebration of the hard, often brutal work of farming and its vulnerability to fate their recognition of the realities of rural poverty, neglect and old age their celebration of love, friendship and the natural world and, of course, their dedication to exploring the deep and intricate bonds between people and animals of all types.īut above all I loved them for their panoply of vividly drawn people. I re-read them often, including during the early days of the pandemic, and while the older me recognizes a highly romanticized, white male-centric view of social history when I see one, I love them still.
#Playall instead of seasonplay series
I had been very much looking forward to the series I‘m a big fan of British television, particularly during times of crisis, and I love James Herriot’s books with the kind of fanatical love reserved for works first encountered and appreciated during childhood. And I’m tired of people, including critics whose opinions I respect, telling me I should. In other words, I do not love the new “All Creatures Great and Small,” currently airing Sundays on PBS Masterpiece. The arrogance of telling the world “this is just what we need at this moment,” as if people’s needs were all the same or certain people and platforms were arbiters of what serves the common good. The seemingly willful disregard for and dismissal of tradition in favor of a new, modern narrative. The groupthink rush to be all in on something that has just begun. Although I am part of it, there are times when I do not understand the mainstream media at all.