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92 of 93 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
We've waited too long for this one!, 13 Mar 2004
A perfect example of how good British television used to be, but probably never will be again. A dream cast, witty yet believable dialogue, a clever concept and unobtrusive direction. If you've seen The Norman Conquests before - it's just as brilliant as you remember. If you're finding it for the first time, you're in for a treat.The premise is simple. Incurable romantic Norman has arrived to take his spinstery sister-in-law Annie away for a dirty weekend (to East Grinstead, where else?). Her mixed feelings about the prospective affair are complicated by the arrival of her brother Reg and his wife Sarah, not to mention the lurking on the fringes of a dim would-be suitor, a vet named Tom. All that's missing is Norman's wife Ruth, who duly arrives. The weekend is enacted in three plays, each taking place in a different part of the house - the dining room, the living room, and the garden. Each play could stand on its own but all three together give the complete picture. An exit from one play is often an entrance into another. For instance, during a conversation between Annie and Tom in one play, Reg suddenly enters, looks around, picks up a wastepaper basket and walks out again. It seems no make no sense. But in another play, Reg's wife is dying to know what is going on between Annie and Tom and sends Reg in to investigate. Reluctant and embarrassed, all he can think to do is pick up the basket and beat a hasty retreat. It's a tribute to Alan Ayckbourn's writing that what could have been so complicated works as smoothly - and as entertainingly - as it does. But it's the performances that really make The Norman Conquests. Richard Briers and Penelope Keith as Reg and Sarah are fantastic as the sort of married couple we have all encountered and dread becoming. Penelope Wilton as Annie is touching and frail, but with the capacity to unleash fire and passion suddenly and unexpectedly. David Troughton is delightful as the dim-witted Tom, permanently confused but with his heart in the right place. Fiona Walker's Ruth is hard as nails, dripping with equal measures of sarcasm and exasperation. And holding it all together - or scattering sanity to the winds - is Tom Conti as Norman, a shuffling haystack of a creature, full of charm and poetic lust - as unreliable as he is irresistible. These plays have been off our screens for far too long. It's wonderful to have them again - grab them quick before somebody changes their mind and withdraws them!
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