"The Line of Beauty" (2006) TV mini-series

Seasons:

1

Release Date:

17 May 2006 (UK)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A young man becomes attached to a family that's not his own, and casts himself into the life of plentiful riches and gay love affairs that he seems destined for.

Plot Keywords:

Homosexual | AIDS | Party | Thatcher | Scandal

Cast

Dan Stevens	...	Nick Guest (3 episodes, 2006)
Tim McInnerny	...	Gerald Fedden (3 episodes, 2006)
Hayley Atwell	...	Cat Fedden / ... (3 episodes, 2006)
Alice Krige	...	Rachel Fedden (3 episodes, 2006)
Carmen du Sautoy	...	Elena (3 episodes, 2006)
Alex Wyndham	...	Wani Ouradi (3 episodes, 2006)
James Bradshaw	...	Polly Tompkins (3 episodes, 2006)
Oliver Coleman	...	Toby Fedden (3 episodes, 2006)
Lydia Leonard	...	Penny Kent (3 episodes, 2006)
Don Gilet	...	Leo Charles (3 episodes, 2006)
Christopher Fairbank	...	Barry Groom (3 episodes, 2006)
Oscar James	...	Brentford (2 episodes, 2006)
John Warnaby	...	Badger (2 episodes, 2006)
John Standing	...	Lord Kessler (2 episodes, 2006)
Siri Svegler	...	Martine (2 episodes, 2006)
Nikki Amuka-Bird	...	Rosemary Charles (2 episodes, 2006)
Justin Salinger	...	Russel / ... (2 episodes, 2006)
Caroline Blakiston	...	Lady Partridge (2 episodes, 2006)
Julia St. John	...	Greta Timms (2 episodes, 2006)
David Yelland	...	John Timms (2 episodes, 2006)
John Quayle	...	Geoffrey Titchfield (2 episodes, 2006)
Bruno Lastra	...	Tristao (2 episodes, 2006)
Tom Knight	...	Norman Kent (2 episodes, 2006)

Runtime:

USA:179 min (San Francisco Lesbian & Gay Film Festival)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Australia:MA

Filming Locations:

Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Trivia:

The title refers to a feature of architecture, a concave shape combined with a convex shape, known as an ogee. "Ogee" is also the name of the magazine that Nick and Wani publish in the series.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Nick Guest: Wow. Is this really where you live?
Toby Fedden: Yep, well, you know, where my parents live. What's the matter, something wrong with it?
Nick Guest: No, it's... it's lovely.
Toby Fedden: Come on, then.

All the makings of a classic

Okay, so it may seem unfair to review The Line of Beauty after having only seen Episode One, but the sneaky peek on show last night at the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival gave every indication that this adaptation of Alan Hollinghurst's Booker Prize-winning novel is a classic in the making.

Everyone who has read the novel will have his or her own impression of the characters and locales. (I lived in Notting Hill for more than a decade, so my mental picture of the story was probably more vivid than most.) But within minutes of the bravura opening sequence (grafted onto the novel by canny adapter Andrew Davies), director Saul Dibb makes Nick Guest's world his own.

What I found so extraordinary about this adaptation (or at least the first episode) is how cleverly Davies has mined the novel for humour, social commentary and romance. On- screen representations of the upper-middle-classes tend to show us the wholly implausible world of PG Wodehouse, but without Wodehouse's wit, or stick the knife in with bitter class hatred. The Line of Beauty does neither; showing us the Fedden family warts and all. Gerald Fedden MP (in a stunningly good characterisation by Tim McInnerney) is quite the pompous paterfamilias, but is also generous, funny and kind.

As our "eyes and ears" through the story, newcomer Dan Stevens is pitch-perfect; his clear, blue eyes miss nothing as his life becomes more and more entwined with the Feddens and their glittering world.

The clips shown of the following two episodes promise no decline in quality, so if The Line of Beauty does not come quite as close to perfection as Brideshead Revisited - which remains the high watermark of British television drama - it is still shaping up to be landmark adaptation, and not to be missed when it premieres on BBC2 later in May.