The Barchester Chronicles (1982)

1/16/06

The Barchester Chronicles was a 1982 BBC mini-series based on two novels by the prolific Anthony Trollope. Boasting a veritable whose-who of British character actors including Donald Pleasence, Nigel Hawthorne, Clive Swift, Geraldine McEwan, and a young Alan Rickman it was a pleasure to watch. It was in this production that Rickman seems to have established his trademark "I'm so much better then you, you disgust me" characterization. Pleasence, who wasted so much of his time in horror films and cheap foreign productions, is truly a great actor and seeing him embody the meek and mild Rev. Septimus Harding was a real treat. The plots were mostly comedies of manners and factionalizations in a small community but also touched on the importance of religious moderation as both the 'reformers' and 'orthodox' came off as overly reactionary.