An Englishman's Castle - 1978 TV review

Back in 1978, I began my first 'proper job', having previously worked for six months in a factory prior to university. I had no money to spare, so I couldn't afford a television set - that took a year of saving up, strange as it seems today - so I had no idea what was being shown on TV. That explains why, when I came across An Englishman's Castle on YouTube, I'd never heard of it. But what a great discovery!

It turns out to be a three-part series, written by Philip Mackie - an excellent screenwriter - and starring Kenneth More as Peter Ingram, writer of a TV soap opera set during the war. We begin by seeing a scene being recorded and it's therefore a while before it becomes clear that An Englishman's Castle is actually an example of alternative history - the Germans have won the war.

This programme is outstanding. I really enjoyed it and admired the brilliant economy of Mackie's writing. There's a lot of meat in the story - nowadays the TV companies would pressurise the writer to turn it into about a dozen episodes, if not more. But the pace with which the story develops means that, unlike so many contemporary TV series, this one is gripping from start to finish.

More is at his very best, while Isla Blair as his lover is very good and Anthony Bate makes a convincingly slimy TV controller. The cast also includes the young Nigel Havers and Frederick Treves. The cleverness of the story is that so much is conveyed by implication - the violence is offscreen, and so is the developing insurgency. And the script makes very good points about the abuse of power and antisemitism without being unsubtle. And as a bonus, the theme music is Chi Mai by Ennio Morricone. A few years later it became a big hit as the theme to a series about David Lloyd George.