Rent A Dance to the Music of Time (1997)

Gets four stars for endeavour as much as quality - A Dance to the Music of Time review by SB

This Channel 4 drama is in four episodes of about 1hr 40 mins each, and covers a decades-long time-span from the 1920s onwards. This means that the onward momentum is maintained but inevitably some of the rich texture of the twelve novels by Anotony Powell is lost. Period settings in Oxford, London and the country are well evoked.

Performances are mostly good, although some are little more than cameos (John Gielgud, Frank Middlemass for example). Because of the vast numbers on view, the device of the narrator (James Purefoy in the first three episodes) is probably necessary if we are to keep our bearings. The quivering heart of the series is Simon Rusell Beale's superb Widmerpool, whether he is a pompous ass at school, slithering through a party as he ascends the social ladder, involved in murky spy stuff or denouncing 'the system' as a slightly mad university chancellor. Around him people come and go, and the death rate in the last two episodes is very high. The other standout is Miranda Richardson's Pamela Flitton, a true 'belle dame sans merci' who eats men for breakfast. It is not clear why John Standing replaced Purefoy as narrator in the last episode; he is far too old at the start of it compared with the rest of the cast. However, Joanna David as his 'new' wife is an upgrade on the previous somewhat bland model.

Given that it is so lengthy and has so many characters you need to be prepared to sit down and concentrate, but if you do, then the rewards are considerable – though slightly depressing, to think that such a shower were (and in many respects still are) running the country. Anthony Powell's memoirs are themselves quite interesting in that regard as well.