Cold Comfort Farm

Director: John Schlesinger.
Producer: Alison Gilby.
Script: Malcolm Bradbury. (from the novel by Stella Gibbons)
Cinematography: Chris Seager.
Film Editing: Mark Day.
Production Design: Malcolm Thornton.
Art Direction: Jim Holloway.
Costume Design: Amy Roberts.
Makeup Department: Anita Burger, Carmel Jackson and Dorka Nieradzik.
Sound Department: Allan Fowlie, Jim Greenhorn and Debbie Pragnell.
Original Music: Robert Lockhart.

Kate Beckinsale - Flora Poste
Eileen Atkins - Judith Starkadder
Joanna Lumley - Mrs. Mary Smiling
Ian McKellen - Amos Starkadder
Rufus Sewell - Seth Starkadder
Ivan Kaye - Reuben Starkadder
Sheila Burrell - Ada Doom
Stephen Fry - Mybug
Freddie Jones - Adam Lambsbreath
Miriam Margolyes - Mrs. Beetle
Jeremy Peters - Urk
Maria Miles - Elfine Starkadder

This hilarious satire on the rural costume drama is an infectious adaptation of the 1932 novel by Stella Gibbons and briskly directed by John Schlesinger for the BBC and Thames television. Kate Beckinsale is wonderful in the lead role, and the rest of the savvy ensemble cast perfectly send up a host of literary clichés in this fabulously acted comedy of manners.

Miss Flora Poste (Kate Beckinsale), a strong-willed society woman from London suddenly finds herself orphaned and without means in the 1920s. Moving in with her unsophisticated eccentric relatives, the Starkadders, on a rustic Sussex farm, Flora is hardly daunted by their primitivism but instead takes charge and imposes hygiene, order, and good manners on the dirty, superstitious lot. Despite protests from the bedridden, iron-willed matriarch of the Cold Comfort Farm, Ada Doom (Sheila Burrell), the feisty Flora endeavours to assist all the family members in fulfilling their dreams. Rugged farmhand Seth (Rufus Sewell) is whisked away to Hollywood; the burly Reuben (Ivan Kaye) is given the running of the farm he’s always craved; hell-fire preacher Amos (Ian McKellen) goes to America to spread God’s word and Elfine (Maria Miles) is married to the man of her dreams. Finally, even stubborn Ada joins the departures from Cold Comfort Farm and heads to Paris looking a picture of sophistication.