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Country Matters
An Aspidistra in Babylon
25 February 1973, Grenada Television
1979, PBS, Masterpiece Theater
Role: Captain Blaine
An Aspidistra in Babylon was
adapted for this production by Jeremy Paul, who wrote several
Sherlock Holmes TV episodes as well as
The
Secret of Sherlock Holmes, the long-running play
starring JB and Edward Hardwicke.
Jeremy Paul discusses his friendship with
Jeremy Brett (from
A
Dedication to Jeremy Brett): "
[Jeremy and I] became friends before we worked
together. Then I adapted an H.E. Bates story,
An Aspidistra in Babylon, for a Granada series called Country
Matters and Jeremy played the lead -- a kind of young
[officer] in barracks at Dover who seduces the local girl and
then abandons her. This was in the early '70s. Working on this
production secured our friendship, I guess."
Plot summary from
BFI
database:
Set in summer 1919 in Dover. Christine's mother runs a boarding house, in which Christine
(Carolyn Courage) feels like the dull aspidistras which clutter the rooms, until Captain Blaine arrives to find rooms for his rich aunt. Christine falls in love for the first time, and undergoes a violent change from innocent young girl into a woman brought to the very edge of corruption.
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