South Riding [DVD]

It is very difficult to imagine anyone better than Dorothy Tutin playing Winifred Holtby's determined Headteacher. Holtby,a friend and contemporary of Vera Brittain whose " Testament of Youth" was a major piece of work, was a feminist and prolific writer and journalist who wrote for the Trade Union magazine The Schoolteacher and The Manchester Guardian. Dorothy Tutin plays the central character, Miss Sarah Burton, with great conviction. Returning to her native Yorkshire she finds "the winds of change are blowing over the South Riding".She strives with great passion to enable the girls in her school to have ambition ,study hard and fulfil their true potential.

Adapted by Sam Barstow and co- directed by James Ormerod and Alistair Reid, South Riding is a masterly drama. In addition to the presence of Dorothy Tutin, a fine supporting cast including Hermione Baddeley, Judy Bowker( an excellent Midge Carne), Clive Swift and the underated Milton Johns, do full justice to Holtby's most celebrated work. The restrained love that Sarah Burton feels for the aggressive Robert Cairn, whose entrenched views and hostility to change shape his character, is both tender and believable. Nigel Davenport plays the role of Carne with considerable force and feeling.

Winifred Holtby,aware that she was dying, strove to complete South Riding before her premature death at the age of 37. This excellent 1974 production is a splendid adaptation of her much loved novel.
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The previous review has no validity since the writer did not have the patience to watch this series all the way through. The winner of four major television awards, Yorkshire Television's version of Winifred Holtby's superb, but under-rated, 1930s novel is an excellent one, which brings out all the compassion and humanity of the original. Credit must go to Stan Barstow for the faithful adaptation and to the cast, among whom Dorothy Tutin gives a truly wonderful performance as the idealistic headmistress Sarah Burton. Nigel Davenport is also fine as the landowner Robert Carne, who represents all the things to which Sarah is opposed but which do not prevent her from loving him. The sometimes rather leisurely pace merely allows the drama to unfold steadily and purposefully.

I began watching with some trepidation, expecting it to be a hammy and dated production. How pleasantly surprised I was! Yes, the first episode was rather heavy-going and seemed to cram in an awful lot of characters and plots and sub-plots, but then so does the book. With both, a little perseverance made it all worthwhile as for the rest of the series I was transfixed by the story and, on the whole,the acting. I live in the area dubbed "Cold Harbour" in the novel so it was admittedly of particular interest to me, but apart from that, this was a wide-sweeping depiction of rural Britain of the time between the two wars. Had I not read the book I might have suspected that many of the feminist and political aspects had been inserted by Stan Barstow, it seemed so modern, but they were actually true to the content of the novel. Winifred Holtby was very politically aware and shared many of the views of Sarah Burton, the headmistress who strives so hard to inspire and enable her students and to ensure that they get the best possible education. More than this, the author does not just take the leftist approach and only depict the poor and needy, but also shows empathy for the struggle of farmers and landowners to survive and not go under and for the politicians who follow their beliefs. As to the complaint that the series was dated, I actually found that this enhanced the atmosphere. (No doubt the new series will be very pretty and glossy, but I doubt that it will feel as authentic.) The acting in the 70s version was very true to the characters, apart from the rather wooden performance of Nigel Davenport. Locations are true to the area and the atmosphere created was spot on. Don't be deterred, stick it out past the first couple of episodes, let it take over your imagination and you will be hooked.