The Forsyte Saga

THE FORSYTE SAGE by JOHN GALSWORTHY

On DVD - made 2003 by ITV Price £11.99 from Amazon.

I have said that I 'would recommend to a friend' because, if you have not read the books, it IS a delightful story BUT you really should read the books (see my review on them).

Well, I am sorry to say that I did not like this version - in my opinion it is not a patch on the BBC's adaptation made in the late 60's or early 70's (not exactly sure of the date). The new version is lavish with beautiful costumes and scenery BUT the characters do not match up to Galswothy's character descriptions at all; I do realise that there has to be a large amount of additional dialogue, surmized from the book to make an adaptation BUT why alter so many of the scenes which Galsworthy described so well? The same conclusions are arrived at here but they are not done in the way the author described at all.

The characters are nothing like as described in the books - witness Irene - Galsworthy's description, willowy and blonde (actually her hair is described by him as 'feuilles mortes' - dead leaves), Gina McKee, who plays her, has very dark hair and hunched shoulders; Damian Lewis ( an excellent actor in my opinion) of the bright red hair, plays Soames - where in the books does Galsworthy describe this? He could have worn a wig! Ms. McKee actually looked as if she was in acute discomfort throughout the piece as she had a martyred, miserable expression - understandable during her 'Soames' years but not later when she was written about as being extremely happy. Maybe it was having to wear laceup corsets for the costumes which caused this?

Fleur is another case in point; Galsworthy's description, tiny with dark, shingled hair - NOT in this adapatation - she is well built and blonde! I could go on . The only well-cast character is the handsome Ioan Gruffydd as the Byronic Bossiney - they did not have to age him!

Have the people who adapt books for film, etc., actually thoroughly read them - it really does make me wonder? Do they think they know better than the author, if so, why adapt a book in the first place - could it be that they do really KNOW what a wonderful story is contained therein? In that case, do it as is!

The other extremely annoying thing is that when the characters were supposed to have aged over many years they still looked exactly the same as at the commencement; not a good job by the make-up department, I think.

All-in-all, I did not like this version, as you can probably tell - maybe I was unduly influenced by the older version but I do not really think so for the reasons given above.