Told in flashback and beginning in 1905, this Channel 4 drama (their most successful) was the rags-to-riches story of Emma Harte, a tough Yorkshire lass from the serving classes who made her way from kitchen maid up through society.
Her ambitions took her out of the scullery and into the world of business. From humble beginnings, Emma starts her business with a small shop, but over the next twenty years she expands her stores and invests in the growing textile industry in Leeds – eventually becoming one of the world’s wealthiest women, owning a major chain of ‘Hartes’ department stores clearly modelled on Harrods (where some of the filming actually took place).
By the time of World War II, Emma is the head of a major international retail and manufacturing empire.
After an illegitimate daughter and two marriages, she finally meets the love of her life, Australian Paul McGill (Barry Bostwick), but their affair is cut short by a tragic accident, leaving Emma with his daughter.
In the 1980s Emma faces one of her biggest tests – her children’s attempt to remove her as head of her company, but Emma is far from the senile old woman they think she is – she is determined to stop them at all costs.
There was trooble on t’ moors, trooble in t’ big house, trooble in t’ shop and then trooble in t’ boardroom. Alas there was also trooble wi’ t’ script and trooble in t’ cast . . .
Jenny Seagrove played Emma between the ages of 15 and 80 but succeeded in looking like a vacant 23-year-old throughout. Deborah Kerr took over at 80, but looked only 50 and had all the grit of a cuddly pink teddy bear.
The period trappings were fairly generic, and some of the scenes sometimes verged on the ludicrous due to over-compression. A good example of this could be found in three consecutive sequences in the second instalment in which Emma, now running her own shop in Leeds, turns down a marriage proposal from her business partner David (Joris Stuyck), is sexually attacked by the evil Gerald Fairley (Christopher Guard), and then proposed to again, this time by her present landlord (played with gruff charm by John Duttine), all in quick succession.
Adapted by Lee Langley from Barbara Taylor Bradford’s romantic novel, this mini-series was shown on three consecutive nights in 1985.
A year later, a sequel – made in America and entitled Hold That Dream – once again saw Seagrove and Kerr share the role of Harte.
Emma Harte
Jenny Seagrove (1)
Deborah Kerr (2)
Major Paul McGill
Barry Bostwick
Laura O’Neill
Diane Baker
Edwin Fairley
Peter Chelsom
Joe Lowther
John Duttine
Adam Fairley
Peter Egan
Frank Harte
Mick Ford
Arthur Ainsley
Christopher Gable
Gerald Fairley
Christopher Guard
Winston Harte
Dominic Guard
Jack Harte
Del Henney
Olivia Wainwright
Gayle Hunnicutt Murgatroyd
Barry Morse
Blackie O’Neill
Liam Neeson
Adele Fairley
Nicola Pagett
Paula McGill Amory
Miranda Richardson
David Kallinski
Joris Stuyck
Elizabeth Harte
Meg Wynn Owen
Bruce McGill
George Baker
By the time of World War II, Emma is the head of a major international retail and manufacturing empire.
