After decades as a politician's wife, 85-year-old Lady Slane retires to a cottage after her husband dies. Struggling to rediscover her identity, she contends with intrusive family members.
After a lifetime in the spotlight.Lady Slane, the 85 year old wife of a recently deceased politician is allowed to shed her public persona and retreat to a cottage in the Hampstead countryside. Rediscovering her identity is no easy task with family members constantly meddling in her affairs. Brilliantly adapted from Vita Sackville-West's classic novel, this masterpiece was nominated for four BAFTA.
This three-part miniseries begins with elderly Lady Slane (Wendy Hiller) sitting watchfully by the deathbed of her husband. Tended by her equally aged French maid Genoux (Eileen Way), who has served her faithfully for a lifetime, Lady Slane deals with a succession of advice from her large flock of middle-aged children. The family is chagrined by, but honors, her choice to live a modest country retirement at some distance, in Hampstead Heath. Lady Slane competently comes to terms to lease and restore a crumbling house, aided by an aging land agent Gervase Bucktrout (Maurice Denham). Once settled, an acquaintance from 50 years past, Mr. Fitzgeorge (Harry Andrews), visits the cottage to rekindle memories of their brief, deep, but unfulfilled brush as soul-mates in colonial India when Lady Slane was a devoted young wife and mother. Great-granddaughter Deborah (Jane Snowden), who has been trapped by a socially desirable but passionless engagement, regularly visits to confide and seek wisdom. Through many golden months, the close circle of friends that has formed meets regularly to the last for tea, laughter, and reflections on the philosophy of life.
