The Good Companions: The Complete Series DVD, 1980-81

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MovieMail's Review

JB Priestley’s classic novel The Good Companions had already had two big-screen outings before this leisurely TV adaptation by Alan Plater. It’s an amiable saunter through the sawdust-and-tinsel world of travelling players in 1930s Britain, in the company of a band of misfits who coalesce to form a kind of family. Its matriarch is Miss Trask (Judy Cornwell), a lady of means who bankrolls the troupe, arousing her respectable family’s disapproval; the other parental role is filled by Jess Oakroyd (John Stratton), a Yorkshireman who flees down the Great North Road in search of adventure and becomes the company’s odd-job man. Each episode features several musical numbers (by David Fanshawe), all as rough-edged and earnest as the characters themselves. The late and much-missed Plater renders Priestley’s characters with great warmth, and the cast brims over with bonhomie in a production that, true to Priestley’s own worldview, champions the virtues of collective action. First broadcast at the dawn of the Thatcher era, and wearing its socialist heart on its sleeve, The Good Companions represents a bygone age of TV drama.

Nick Riddle on 25th July 2011
View all 48 of Nick Riddle's reviews

Film Information

Director - Various (TV)

Produced - 1980-81

Main Language - English

Countries & Regions - British Film

Cast - Nigel Hawthorne, Denis Lawson, Roy Kinnear, Jan Francis, John Stratton, Judy Cornwell

DVD Details

Certificate:	PG	Publisher:	Network	Region:	2
Length:	450 mins	Aspect:	4:3	Cat No:	7953583
Format:	DVD Colour

DVD Extras

3 discs

Film Description

Jan Francis leads a lively cast in Alan Plater’s adaptation of J.B. Priestley’s celebrated novel, The Good Companions, which charts the rollercoaster fortunes of a struggling concert party. Francis co-stars alongside Bryan Pringle, John Stratton and Moody and Pegg’s Judy Cornwell, with guest appearances by Roy Kinnear, Denis Lawson and Nigel Hawthorne.

Jess Oakroyd, discontented with his home, his work and his football team, tears up his Insurance Card and disappears into the night, only to fetch up on the ragged edges of show business. We share with him the trials and tribulations of the Good Companions as they tour seaside towns, industrial cities and rural backwaters of 1930s England in their search for success and stardom.