238 Poldark

First  watched : 11  January  1976

My  wife  is  currently  watching  the re-boot  of  this  series  but  I  prefer to  stick  with  my  memories  of  the  original.  I  mentioned  a  few  posts  ago  that  I  had  become  fascinated  by  cast  lists   and  Poldark  running  on  a  Sunday  night  for  16  episodes  from  the  autumn  of  1975  had   the  biggest  of  them  all. Unfortunately  for  most  of  the  time  it  was  running  against  the  final  series  of  Upstairs  Downstairs  on  ITV  and  so  I  only  got  to  see  the  last  two  episodes. Strangely  enough  I watched  them  on  my  own;  I  don't  know  what  my  mum  and  sister  were  doing  instead  but  I  got  them  interested  when  it  was  repeated  the  following  year  before  a  second  series  in  the  autumn.

Poldark  was  adapted  from  a  series  of  novels  by  Winston  Graham  set  in  the  turbulent  Cornwall  of  the  late  eighteenth  century . The  Poldarks  headed  up  by  impulsive  young  squire  Ross   ( Robin  Ellis )  are  trying  to  uphold  their   long-established  social  position   by  squeezing  the  last  deposits  from  a  waning  set  of  copper  mines   while  pursuing  a  feud  with  the  arriviste  family , the  Warleggans. Extra  spice  is  added  by  saturnine  villain  George  Warleggan  ( Ralph  Bates ) marrying  Ross's  original  sweetheart  Elizabeth   ( Jill  Townsend )   after  Ross  is  forced  to  make  a  shotgun  marriage  with  his  kitchen  maid  Demelza  ( Angharad  Rees ).  

The  series  was  good  knockabout  bodice-ripping  stuff  with  a  good  selection  of  colourful  characters  including  Christopher  Biggins  of  all  people  as  a  randy  vicar. His  roving  eye  alighted  at  one  point  on  the  naked  rump  of  Julie  Dawn  Cole , my  first  sighting  of  such  a  thing  on  TV. It  was  pretty  raunchy  all  the  way  through  as  I  remember. Perversely,  I  sided  with  George   and  always  wanted  him  to  come  out  on  top  in  the  confrontations.

It  came  to  an  end  because  Graham  couldn't  keep  the  pace. The  two  series  were  based  on  his  seven  existing  novels  and  the  next  one  wasn't  published  until  1981 by  which  time  things had  moved  on. In  the  meantime  there'd   been  a  flood  of  imitations,  with  Penmarric  the  most  obvious  example,  as  testament  to  the  series'  appeal.

Poldark  was  the  high  point for  most  of  the  cast  although  Kevin  McNally  who  played  Demelza's  fiery  young  brother  is  still  a  very  busy  actor. Ellis  is  now  semi-retied  and  living  in  France; inevitably  he  was  given  a  cameo  role  in  the  new  series. Angharad  Rees  chose  to  concentrate  on  motherhood  rather  than  build  on  her  success. She  died  in  2012  of  pancreatic  cancer  , the  same  thing  that  killed  Ralph  Bates  at  the  tragically  early  age  of  51  after  his  success  in  playing  a  remarkably  different  character  in  the  comedy  Dear  John.