To Serve Them All My
Days (British Mini-Series)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C Episodes: B
To Serve Them All My Days (1980)
is still one of the best-known and respected early British TV mini-series from
the golden age of such shows. Taking
place between the two World Wars, David Powlett-Jones (John Duttine) has
survived serving in World War I and becomes a teacher at the elite (and
conformist) Bamfylde. He is still not
right from his war experience, including being shell shocked on occasion and is
a more sympathetic and compassionate teacher in part, as a result.
He also was anxious to do this kind of work in the first
place, not expecting WWI to happen. The
Great War changed everything and David sees a chance to get back on track with
his life. Little is he expecting the
surprises ahead, the politics of the school, possibly falling in love with one
Beth Marwood (Belinda Lang) and WWII.
This series came at the end of that golden era, but still holds up well
enough. The school song that opens each
hour-slotted show is enough to drive one to run out and buy every copy of Pink
Floyd’s The Wall on the shelf, but it is scored well enough otherwise.
The show is a tad predictable at time and melodramatic at
others in a way that some will enjoy, while others like this critic feels
dragged on the series. There are 13
untitled shows in all, but with more strengths than weaknesses, the show still
has reasons to hold its classic status enough.
Part of this is due to the cast, which includes Frank Middlemass
(Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon), Alan MacNaughton (The Sandbaggers, A
Very British Coup, both reviewed elsewhere on this site), and Nicholas
Lyndhurst (The Tomorrow People).
The full frame 1.33 X 1 image was taped in the PAL format
and looks fine here in these four NTSC DVDs.
Though these type of shows were starting to loose their unique look,
this show held on to enough of it to be recognizable as part of the original
cycle of them. The Dolby Digital 2.0 is
yet another good stereo boosting of another monophonic TV soundtrack. That makes the viewing more pleasant
overall. The few extras include the
lyrics to the school song, which you can also see through the subtitles and
closed-captions, with other school background information, a biography of book
author R. F. Delderfield, stills and cast filmographies. To Serve Them All My Days is part of
a select group of early 1980s British TV that has to be seen for all those
serious about their television. Acorn
Media once again does proper justice to a classic.
- Nicholas Sheffo
