First viewed : October 1980
The second drama in a row to end with an execution ,this was the latest Dickens adaptation in the Sunday teatime classic serial slot. I dipped in and out of it because of course it clashed with the Top 40 show on Radio One so it rather depended on what records were in the teens that week which one I chose though I certainly saw the final episode.
For those who don't know the story, Sydney Carton , a cynical dissolute barrister falls in love with a French girl Lucie but she prefers a worthy but dull French aristocrat Charles Darnay. To rub salt in Carton's wound, Darnay looks exactly like him. When the latter foolishly returns to revolutionary France to help out a family servant, he gets in serious trouble and Carton has to save him in the most shattering display of self-sacrifice in all literature.
Paul Shelley from Secret Army played the dual role of Carton / Darnay with aplomb but it was well acted all round with special mentions for David Collings playing against type as the duplicitous spy Barsad and Judy Parfitt , terrifying as the revenge-crazed Madame Defarge.
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