1 9 9 1 (UK)
3 x 60 minute episodes
Thames Television presented this three-part sequel to Paradise Postponed which revolved around the issue of urbanisation versus green spaces, and the narrow-minded, self-interest which motivated each camp.
David Threlfall, as MP Leslie Titmuss, now elevated to the cabinet, played a man who had aged mentally and physically, without having abandoned the chip on his shoulder. Threlfall captured superbly a man who had ossified, but whose vulnerability was only more intense.
When Titmuss wasn’t kicking down doors and haranguing his ambitious junior minister, Ken Cracken – played with his usual maverick air by Peter Capaldi – he was wining and dining his mistress in transport cafes, providing some of the funniest scenes with dialogue that was pure black comedy.
Kristin Scott Thomas, as his girlfriend Jenny Sidonia, paced her performance to match his so that an unlikely relationship was wholly credible. Both were widowed and unattached but otherwise appeared incompatible.
Titmuss acquired a stately home in the beautiful, unspoiled Rapstone Valley and intended for Jenny to help him fill it. Meanwhile, his new neighbours were fighting a development plan for the valley.
Once married, Leslie and Jenny honeymooned in Rome but their marital bliss was disturbed by Titmuss’s suspicion that Jenny had someone else in her life. When they returned home, she seemed to be spending a little too much time with Dr Fred Simcox (Paul Shelley), leader of the ‘Save Our Valley’ campaign.
The excellent supporting cast filled out the landscape, each obsessively engaged in his own pursuits, and each of them eccentrics in some way or other. The casting of Bill Oddie as environmentalist Hector Bolitho Jones was almost like that of television presenter Brian Walden, who had the task of playing himself.
Rosemary Leach, as lusty yokel Dot Curdle, was given some very funny scenes, while Sue Bramble (Jane Booker) was waspishly witty.
Leslie Titmuss
David Threlfall
Jenny Sidonia
Kristin Scott Thomas
Dot Curdle
Rosemary Leach
Ken Cracken
Peter Capaldi
Dr Fred Simcox
Paul Shelley
Sue Bramble
Jane Booker
Wilf Curdle
Harry Jones
Evie Curdle
Joanna Brookes
Hector Bolitho Jones
Bill Oddie
Joyce Timberlake
Holly De Jong
Len Bigwell
Paul Bradley
Virginia Beazley
Tricia George
Vernon Beazley
Colin Starkey
Rev. Kevin Bulstrode
Albert Welling
Col. Wilcox
John Horsley
Sir Willoughby Blane
James Grout
Jessica Hopkins
Emma Stephenson
Greg Boland
Will Tacey
Lorna Boland
Katherine Stark
Elsie Titmuss
Sylvia Kay
Nick Titmuss
Russell Porter
Sir Christopher Kempenflatt
Andrew Burt
Barty Pine
John Grillo
Daphne Jones
Liz Crowther
Joan Jones
Rosie Mortimer
Mrs Tippett
Mona Bruce
Jackson Cantelow
Harold Innocent
Titmuss’s Driver
George Higgins
Judge Phyllis Durst
Jo Kendall
Episodes
Today | Tomorrow | And the Next Day