#only Gladstone appears to be a real wrongun‚ the raving mirror to Disraeli's precise and ingenious statesman

[thisbluespirit]

#disraeli#disraeli: portrait of a romantic#atv#classic tv#claude whatham#david butler#ian mcshane#rosemary leach#brewster mason#david de keyser#david wood#john gregg#renée asherson#frances bennett#john carlisle#jeremy clyde#peter hughes#patrick drury#brendan barry#peter miles#in this study of the final years of Disraeli's life‚ I can't help but feel this mini series is hitting new extremes in hagiography#opening with the death of his wife‚ what follows is not the sad loneliness of a bereaved romantic but a series of political triumphs and#only briefly alluded to courtships; Dizzy may be failing in health‚ but he's hitting every shot on the international stage#hurrah he's bought the Suez canal! hurrah he's making Victoria Empress of India! hurrah he's outsmarted Bismarck‚ defeated Russia and made#Victoria fall in love with him. hurrah hurrah hurrah! idk‚ obviously a lot of this is anchored in fact to some degree but it's the utterly#uncritical presentation and shallow dissection that leaves a viewer feeling... well‚ complicated. the script is as strong as ever where#dialogue is concerned‚ and of course the actors are all superb (altho by this stage of advanced age‚ most are hidden under wigs and makeup#of varying degrees of convincing) but the overall shape of this series‚ the actual body and soul of it is so surprisingly.. mellow? mild?#only Gladstone appears to be a real wrongun‚ the raving mirror to Disraeli's precise and ingenious statesman#it's a dichotomy that had been popular in music hall sketches and revues‚ but in 1978? profoundly unsubtle

Disraeli: The Chief (1.4, ATV, 1978)

"May I ask: what will be your main concern, sir?"

"To push forward the kind of progressive conservatism that has been my ideal for the past forty years."

"You mentioned social legislation. Could you give us some idea of what you have in mind?"

"Oh, nothing too much, say... slum clearance, setting up of savings banks, shortening the working hours, legal equality between workers and employers, and the establishment of the rights of trade unions amongst other things."

"But... but that is more radical than anything ever proposed by Gladstone."

"It certainly does not sound like conservative policy."

"I want this government to represent the interests of every class - since it was every class that elected us, not just one section of society."