489 Somewhere More Central

First  viewed :  19  May  1981

I  assumed  at  the  time   that   this  little  half  hour  play  in  a  graveyard  slot  on  a  Tuesday  evening  was  a  regional  TV  production  but  no  it  was  nationally  networked.

This  touching  drama  was  written  by  Beryl  Bainbridge  and  concerns  a  gauche  young  girl  Olive  (  Caroline  Embling )  attending  her  grandmother's  funeral.  Flashbacks  show  the  extrovert   old  lady  was  a  much  needed  family  ally  and   that  Olive  will  miss  her  in  a  much  more  meaningful  way  than  the  rest  of  the  family. The  last  moments  had  Olive  lingering  alone  by  the  graveside  and  seeing  her  grandma  helped  out  of  the  hole  by  a  male  admirer   all  dressed  up  for  a  night  on  the  town.

Embling  had  recently  been  in  Tess  and  the  following  year  had  the  titular  role  in  a  mini-series  called  Claire which  I  don't  remember  at  all. She  dropped  out  of  view  in  the  mid-eighties.