Stream On: ‘The Forsyte Saga’—progenitor of the British costume dramas
The 1967 series that inspired the creation of ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ and similar series was rebooted in 2002.
“The Forsyte Saga,” comprising three novels and two interludes (read / download for free) published between 1906 and 1921 by the English author John Galsworthy, was adapted once for the screen and twice for television (below). In 2003, the “Saga” was listed as #123 on the BBC's ‘The Big Read’ poll of the UK’s “best-loved novel.”
THE FORSYTE SAGA (1967)
/Amazon /Not Streaming, but on YouTube /⭐8.5/10 /Episode 1 /NR
“The word Saga might be objected to on the ground that it connotes the heroic and that there is little heroism in these pages.” (Galsworthy, preface to Volume I, “A Man of Property”)
Jean Marsh (Upstairs, Downstairs) said in a 2010 interview that she and her friend Eileen Atkins had been “watching The Forsyte Saga that was made sometime in the ’60s, and we thought, ‘Well, that’s all really wonderful, but who’s doing all the work?’”
In 1967, the BBC produced a 26-part serial that dramatized The Forsyte Saga novels and a subsequent trilogy concerning the Forsytes, A Modern Comedy. BBC writer and producer Donald Wilson intended to produce the series as a 15-part serial in 1959. But MGM owned the rights to the novels, having adapted the first novel A Man of Property into That Forsyte Woman in 1949. After a distribution arrangement was reached in 1965, the series was developed into a groundbreaking 26-part serial, depicting the fortunes of the Forsyte family between 1879 and 1926.
Episode one gives us an introduction to the family, in 1879 London, in Joe Forsyte’s (Kenneth More) voice. It’s taken from Chapter One of the first novel of the series, The Man of Property. Joe, “young Jolyon,” surveys the room at a Forsyte family meeting, an “at-home,” pointing out the individual members of a large upper-middle-class English family. Only a few generations removed from their farmer ancestors, its members are keenly aware of their status as “new money.” The title character of the first novel, the solicitor and connoisseur Soames Forsyte (Eric Porter, The Day of the Jackal), sees himself as a “man of property” by virtue of his ability to accumulate material possessions, but that doesn’t bring him pleasure.
Joe, the narrator, is somewhat of a “black sheep” himself; he’d rather paint, and looks down upon his relatives as mercenary philistines. But he is not blameless: he’s having an affair with his children’s Austrian nanny. He has installed her in a house and promises to leave his wife.
Like the novels, the 1967 Forsyte Saga features shifting timelines with flashbacks, taking its time to land on whom I see as the main instigator of the plot, Soames’ mysterious wife Irene Heron Forsyte (Nyree Dawn Porter—no relation to Eric) who seems to be modeled on Galsworthy’s own wife Ada Nemesis (really!) Pearson.
Filmed in beautiful black and white (BBC was just preparing to broadcast full-time in color in 1967) with a budget of £10,000 per episode, The Forsyte Saga is a sprawling soap opera (albeit a “cultured” one) and a treat to watch. The casting, acting, production and writing are all top-notch, and the family melodrama is like the upstairs part of Upstairs, Downstairs on steroids.
THE FORSYTE SAGA (2002)
/Amazon /Streaming /🍅86%🍿80% /Trailer /TVPG
The attempt to update The Forsyte Saga in the beginning of the 21st Century was pretty audacious. The top billing here is Damian Lewis (Band of Brothers, Wolf Hall—he does make a terrific Soames) and Rupert Graves (Sherlock) as young Jolyon. The series opens with Jolyon exchanging furtive glances with his French governess, Hélène, before the family assembles for the “at-home” to celebrate the engagement, but pretty quickly introduces the mysterious Irene (a striking Gina McKee, The Borgias).
The sets, compared to the great black-and-white 1967 ones, are underwhelming, but the fine cast, which includes Sarah Winman (Foyle’s War), Gilliam Kearney et al., distracts us from them. The cast of the 1967 version, save Kenneth More, wasn’t as well-known in the day.
The introductions are made this time by Winifred (Amanda Root), whose engagement the family is celebrating, to her intended, Monty (Ben Miles, The Crown). The acting is very good; unlike the earlier version, which is somewhat slow to start, the melodrama to come is soon portrayed subtly, in the performances of the players. And the direction seems more modern. There’s a nice scene where young Jolyon’s wife (Winman) realizes his heart has been stolen by the governess—by looking at his sketchbook.
On balance the new version is fine—and different enough from the old one to justify its existence. Actually, it’s rather good!
By the bye, PBS warns of yet another adaptation, or “reimagining” (which usually spells trouble) of the decidedly politically incorrect saga in the works. I’m not encouraged.
Sources include The AV Club, Screen Online and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED).
Pete Hummers is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to earn fees by linking Amazon.com and affiliate sites. This adds nothing to Amazon's prices. This column originally appeared on The Outer Banks Voice.