''Flambards'' is a television series of 13 episodes which was broadcast in the United Kingdom in 1979 on ITV and in the United States in 1980. The series was based on the three '' Flambards''

novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

s of English author K. M. Peyton. The series is set from 1909 to 1918 (

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

is still being fought at the end) and tells how the teenage heroine, the orphaned heiress Christina Parsons (

Christine McKenna Christine McKenna (born 1951, Glasgow) is a British actress active during the 1970s and 1980s, best known for playing Christina in the television series '' Flambards''. Early life McKenna was a drama student at the Royal Scottish Academy of M ...

), comes to live at Flambards, the impoverished

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

estate owned by her crippled and tyrannical uncle, William Russell (

Edward Judd Edward Judd (4 October 1932 – 24 February 2009) was a British actor. Biography Born in Shanghai, Judd and his English father and Russian mother fled when the Japanese attacked Republic of China (1912–49), China five years later. His ca ...

), and his two sons, Mark (

Steven Grives Steven Grives is an English actor based in Australia. Grives made his debut at age 14 on stage at Drury Lane. He went on to feature in '' The Sandbaggers'' before getting a lead role in '' Flambards''. After featuring in '' The Ravelled T ...

) and Will Russell ( Alan Parnaby). Other cast members included Sebastian Abineri as Dick Wright,

Anton Diffring Anton Diffring (born Alfred Pollack; 20 October 1916 – 19 May 1989) was a German actor. He had an extensive film and television career in the United Kingdom from the 1940s to the 1980s, latterly appearing in international films. Primarily a c ...

as Mr Dermott, Rosalie Williams as Mary and

Frank Mills Frank Mills (born June 27, 1942) is a Canadian pianist and recording artist, best known for his solo instrumental hit " Music Box Dancer". Early life and education Mills was born in Montreal, Quebec. He was raised in Verdun, Quebec and started p ...

as Fowler. Four episodes were directed by

Lawrence Gordon Clark Lawrence Gordon Clark is an English television director and producer, screenwriter, and author, best known for creating the supernatural anthology series ''A Ghost Story for Christmas'', which originally aired on BBC One from 1971–1978, wit ...

, and four others by Michael Ferguson. On original British transmission on ITV in 1979 and on original American transmission on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

in 1980, ''Flambards'' was cut from 13 episodes to 12 by combining the first two episodes into one. There was also added narration to the end and beginnings of the episode informing viewers of the events which had been affected by the cuts. In 1981, when ''Flambards'' was repeated on ITV in the UK, the first two episodes were broadcast in full. In the late 1980s ''Flambards'' was shown on the A&E cable network in the US in its full 13 episodes, but heavily commercial-edited.

Synopsis

The story revolves around Christina Parsons, coming of age in a tumultuous era, of old and new, of horses and aeroplanes, of foxhunts, class, suffragettes, death, war, love, loss, and rebuilding new lives out of the ashes of old ones. Christina, an orphan who has been shunted from one relative to the next since the age of 5, comes to live with her cousins and uncle at an estate in Essex called Flambards in 1909 at the age of 16. Her crippled uncle (her mother's half-brother) William Russell is almost never referred to by his first name; she calls him Uncle Russell, perhaps to avoid confusion with her cousin, also named William Russell. Her cousin William speculates that Russell plans for Christina to marry his son Mark in order to restore Flambards to its former glory using the money that she will inherit on her twenty-first birthday. Mark is as brutish as his father, with a great love for hunting, whereas the younger son William is terrified of horses after a hunting accident and aspires to be an early-era aviator. Christina soon develops a love for horses and hunting. She also finds friendship with William, who challenges her ideas on class boundaries, and with the stablehand Dick, who teaches her how to ride. William and Christina eventually fall in love and run away to London from the hunt ball. Later developments lead Christina to return to Flambards during the First World War, where she takes over management of the estate and restores the farm to working order.

Cast

as Christina Parsons *

as Mark Russell * Alan Parnaby as William Russell *

as Uncle Russell * Sebastian Abineri as Dick Wright *

as Fowler * Carol Leader as Dorothy * Rosalie Williams as Mary *

as Mr. Dermot

Episodes

*1. Christina *2. The Blooding *3. Entry to a New World *4. Lady Bountiful *5. Point to Point *6. The Cold Light of Day *7. The Edge of the Cloud *8. Flying High *9. Sing No Sad Songs *10. New Blood *11. Prisoners of War *12. What are Servants For? *13. Inheritance When originally transmitted in the UK on ITV in 1979 and in the US on PBS in 1980, the first two episodes of ''Flambards'' were slightly shortened and edited together to form a "feature-length" introduction to the series. Both this feature-length version and the full-length first two episodes (which were shown in 1981, when ''Flambards'' was repeated on ITV, and on A&E in the US in the late 1980s) are included on Network's DVD release.

Musical score

The series's memorable score was composed by

David Fanshawe David Arthur Fanshawe (19 April 1942 – 5 July 2010) was an English composer and self-styled explorer with a fervent interest in world music.''The Times'' obituary 9 July 2010. His best-known composition is the 1972 choral work '' African Sanct ...

, who is most famous for his 1972 composition '' African Sanctus''. Of his score for ''Flambards'' Fanshawe later wrote,

Flying scenes

For the aerial scenes radio controlled model period aircraft were used, the shots framed so that the small size of the aircraft was concealed.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Flambards 1979 British television series debuts 1979 British television series endings 1970s British drama television series 1970s British television miniseries British English-language television shows ITV television dramas Television series by ITV Studios Television series by Yorkshire Television World War I television drama series