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reviews the latest from PBS' 'Masterpiece Theatre' from the stories by H.E. Bates |
 Albert Finney with child actor Joe Prospero |
who lives life to full measure
of TheColumnists.com
IF YOU'VE always wondered how Albert Finney's rollicking Tom Jones might have wound up in old age, I've a hunch he might have turned out something like H.E. Bates' Uncle Silas.
Finney seems to agree because ever since he was hired to play Bates' delightful old English rogue in "My Uncle Silas" for PBS' Exxon/Mobil Masterpiece Theatre, he has referred to Silas as "Tom Jones with a bus pass." (In England, you qualify for a senior citizen bus pass at age 65.)
It has been a spell since "Masterpiece Theatre" gave us a leading character as infectiously appealing as Uncle Silas. If you haven't yet discovered that the venerable PBS series has shifted to Monday nights, this is the one time you have to write it down in your datebook so you won't miss the premiere of "My Uncle Silas" on Nov. 26 at 9 p.m. (Check your local PBS station for playing times in your area.)
"My Uncle Silas" consists of five short episodes told in a total of two hours. They let us watch what happens when Silas, a 60something widower, is visited for the summer by his 10-year-old grand-nephew Edward (Joe Prospero) at Silas' home in the country during the idyllic years before World War I. The stories are by the beloved H.E. Bates, who based them on his memories of his own rascally uncle. If, like me, you still fondly remember Bates' other great outing on "Masterpiece Theatre"--the miniseries "Love for Lydia"--then you'll immediately know why you're going to really, really enjoy this evening on PBS.
In 1963, when "Tom Jones" won the Oscar for best film, Finney was a young and rambunctious British actor, playing a young and exceedingly virile rakehell who seemed bent on lifting the skirts of all the fetching ladies who passed before him. Now Finney is an aging and obese character player who looks as if he's going to suffer cardiac arrest every time he crosses a room.
But what a whale of an actor the man is! If you saw his Oscar-nominated performance in last year's "Erin Brockovich," you don't need to be reminded of that. This time he's front and center, playing a character so full of life that it even leaks out of his ears when he's sleeping.
In "The Wedding," the first episode of "My Uncle Silas," we meet the old boy as he's tuning up for the marriage of his son that day. He does it by poaching a fish or two from a neighbor's pond--he doesn't even need a fishing rod--and by outrunning the neighbor's shotgun blasts. Meanwhile, he keeps alert by boozing constantly.
Somehow this prepares you for the usual bad results you get when you mix a drunkard with a formal ceremony. But the surprise here is how well Silas and the bride get along, singing to each other and dancing well into the night while the bridegroom sulks nearby. One gets the impression that Silas has been getting away with this sort of thing all his life--and being loved all the more for it, except by those uptight people who derive all their pleasure from observing all rules of propriety.
In the episode that follows, "Queenie White," we get ample proof of how Silas gets away with decidedly anti-social behavior. He takes his nephew with him on an out-of-town job painting some rooms at a hotel by the railway. When they arrive, though, Silas is chagrined to see the proprietor posting a sign warning travellers that this is now an establishment that doesn't serve alcoholic beverages.
This isn't a terminal blow to Silas, since he carries his own supply of liquor on his person, but it rankles him to think that other weary travellers might alight at a station hotel where they can't partake of liquid refreshment. In conversation with the innkeeper's hard-working wife, Silas discerns that she shares his outlook on life and wouldn't mind kicking up her heels a bit.
The rest of the episode involves the ways in which Silas encourages a bit of that heel-kicking and, in a manner of speaking, strikes a blow for female liberation.
In the third episode, "The Blue Feather," guest star Charlotte Rampling, still a remarkably handsome woman in middle age, plays a consumptive lady of wealth and property who first encounters Silas as he's having a nip while digging a grave in a churchyard. She's offended that he would drink in a churchyard--and set such a bad example for his nephew.
Ultimately, though, the fine lady develops a real affection for Silas that you have to see to believe. Later, when he's brought to her attention for poaching game birds on her property, she devises a very unique punishment for the old reprobate. Let's just say it's a punishment that fits the crime.
Episode four, "Silas & Goliath," finds him defending his own reputation as a tough guy, along with the honor of a lovely barmaid, by engaging in a prizefight with a renowned heavyweight boxer who's touring English villages, taking on all comers. As you might expect, Silas' training regimen isn't especially effective. But it's scientific when compared with the "special diet" the barmaid puts the other guy on before the big bout.
In the final episode, "The Revelation," Silas spins the tale of what happened to him in his youth when he went in swimming naked with a bunch of the boys and the local girls stole all their clothing they'd left next to the swimming hole. He tells this story as he's being given a bath by his housekeeper, a bossy, but loving old gal that Silas describes as being "as tart as rhubarb." There are a couple of interesting revelations in this episode, not the least of which is the fact that Albert Finney probably shouldn't be seen undressed these days, not if he wants to keep the memory of "Tom Jones" fresh in our minds.
If you try it, I'm sure you'll find "My Uncle Silas" as entertaining as I did--and maybe even start hoping PBS can lure Albert Finney back to show us what Silas and his nephew did the following summer.
© 2001 by Ron Miller. The illustration is © by Granada Media and is used courtesy of WGBH Boston.
RON MILLER was a nationally-syndicated
television columnist for Knight Ridder Newspapers from 1977-99,
served as national president of the Television Critics Assn.,
and was co-author of "Masterpiece Theatre," the official
companion book to the PBS television series.
You
can comment on this column or contact Ron Miller with an email
to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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