First watched : Sunday 1 December 1974
Heidi finished and was replaced immediately by this six part adaptation of Dickens's most auto-biographical work. After A Christmas Carol this was probably my first introduction to his work.
I've not read the book since or seen another adaptation so this is the plot as far as I can recall. Young David's father dies when he's very young and his mother re-marries an absolute bastard called Murdstone. Unable to bear the ill-treatment David runs away to his Aunt Betsy who takes him in then packs him off to boarding school. There he makes friends with a lad called Tommy Traddles and eventually the flash bully Steerforth.
When they become adults Steerforth runs away with his friend's wife and later perishes in a shipwreck as does the husband who unknowingly tries to rescue him. David's discovery of their bodies on the beach is the scene I recall best. Thereafter I got a bit lost . David marries first Dora who dies and then Agnes and there's a complicated legal storyline featuring Traddles and the self-effacing but corrupt lawyer Uriah Heep.
David Yelland played the title role but was overshadowed by Anthony Andrews as Steerforth and Arthur Lowe as the overbearing but financially inept Micawber.
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