To the Manor Born-Series 2 (1979)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Interviews-Crew-Peter Spence (Writer) Filmographies-Cast Production Notes
Rating
Year Of Production	1979
Running Time	200:18 (Case: 222)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Gareth Gwenlan
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Penelope Keith Peter Bowles
Case	Amaray-Transparent-S/C-Dual
RPI	$39.95	Music	Ronnie Hazlehurst John Dunstan Fran Needham

    I am a great lover of English comedy where over the years the best sketch and episodic comedies have been routinely churned out, from Monty Python to Fawlty Towers to Blackadder to Black Books and so on. This classic series from the late 1970s/early 1980s certainly deserves a place in that pantheon. Only three series were made, totalling 21 episodes including a Christmas Special. At the time of writing all three series are available on DVD, either separately or together in a box set. The First Series has previously been reviewed and the release of the new box set version encouraged me to review the other two series and the box set. To cut a long story short, the new box set is little more than a repackage with the actual disc contents being exactly the same, including menus and extras (which are the same on each series set - and therefore repeated three times on the box set!).

    As you are probably aware, the basic plot of this series involves widow Audrey fforbes-Hamilton (Penelope Keith) who is the former lady of the manor. After her husband's death, she was forced to sell the manor and move into the Lodge (a smaller house on the estate). She sold the Manor to businessman Richard DeVere (Peter Bowles), who she discovered much to her horror is not even English. After he moves in with his mother, she goes out of her way to make life difficult for him but slowly over the first season it becomes obvious that there was a mutual attraction underneath the barbs. As the show continued over its three year run, that attraction became more and more obvious. These two characters were supported by a good cast of interesting eccentrics including:

• Brabinger (John Rudling) - Audrey's faithful and wryly humorous butler who stays with her on her move to the Lodge. He is missing from the first five episodes of this series and guessing by his appearance in the last two episodes one assumes the actor was very sick.
• Old Ned (Michael Bilton) - Audrey's gardener and also an employee of Mr DeVere. He replaces Brabinger as Audrey's butler during his absence which leads to many comedic moments.
• Mrs Polouvicka (Daphne Heard) - Richard's Czechoslovakian mother who wants him to get married, preferably to Audrey.
• Marjory Frobisher (Angela Thorne) - Audrey's best friend. She has a crush on Richard.
• The Rector (Gerald Sim) - The local rector and spiritual leader of the community.

    This second series includes 6 episodes, however the DVD set also includes the Christmas special which followed the first season. The episodes included here are:

• The Christmas Special (1979) - The manor has traditionally provided the crib for the nativity which causes a clash between Richard and Audrey. Richard invites Audrey to the manor for Christmas but she refuses.
• Episode 1 (1980) - De Vere brings in a new farm manager to modernise the estate causing much consternation. Audrey is trying to teach Ned how to do Brabinger's job while he is away.
• Episode 2 (1980) - Richard takes a fall during the hunt and Audrey has an old school friend coming to visit but hasn't told her about her impoverished circumstances.
• Episode 3 (1980) - Richard has started collecting rare china and one of his pieces goes missing. Audrey is lonely because Marjory has gone off for a week to attend a course.
• Episode 4 (1980) - A tramp who is a regular visitor is in the area. Audrey has always helped him with meals and old clothes but Richard turns him away.
• Episode 5 (1980) - Audrey is involved in the local conservation society, however Richard is determined to make the estate profitable. The New Year's Honours list is due to be announced. Brabinger returns.
• Episode 6 (1980) - Mrs Polouvicka is not well, Audrey hurts her back and Richard is considering a holiday.

    This is a funny and highly entertaining series even 25 years after it was made, with excellent writing and fine performances, especially from the leads..

    Highly Recommended.

Video

    The video quality is good for a series of this age.

    The feature is presented in a 1.29:1 aspect ratio non 16x9 enhanced which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was surprisingly sharp for a series of this age. There was no evidence of low level noise. There is grain throughout but it is never overbearing. Shadow detail is nothing special but is no worse than you would expect.

    The colour was quite decent, although there is some minor colour bleeding, a little bit of cross-colourisation and some flaring (in red and green) from shiny objects.

    Artefacts included some edge enhancement, some jagged edges and minor aliasing, a few minor spots of tape tracking errors and some spots and blobs.

    There are no subtitles.

    The two discs are both single layered.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is good.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack encoded at 192 Kb/s.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand and there was no problem with audio sync.

    The score of this series by Ronnie Hazlehurst mostly consists of the theme song which is justifiably famous. The music sounds a little too strident in this transfer prompting you to jump to the menu instead of watching the credits.

    The surround speakers and subwoofer were not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    The extras are exactly the same as Series 1 and are repeated again on Series 3.

Menu

    The menu is static and virtually exactly the same on both discs.

Disc 2

Interview with writer Peter Spence (11:57)

    A 2003 interview with the creator and writer which covers his career, the style of writing, the story lines, filming, his inspiration and the characters. Worth watching.

Cast Filmographies

    Text filmographies for all major cast members. Yawn.

Production Notes

    6 text pages about the show and its development.

    This series is available as a box set in Region 1. The differences are as follows.

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• Closed Captioning 
• Peter Bowles interview
• Penelope Keith profile
• The 4 radio episodes which were not filmed

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

• All the extras included here 

    On this basis I think the Region 1 set seems better but the local set is also fine.

    The video quality is good for television of this age.

    The audio quality is good.

    The set has a small set of extras which are repeated on each season set.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall