Product Details

• Actors: Philip Latham, Philip Latham, Donald Pickering, Moray Watson, Barbara Murray
• Format: Box set, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 4
• Studio: Acorn Media
• VHS Release Date: September 26, 2000
• Run Time: 400 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00004WMHE
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #15,707 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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• This is item 1 in The Pallisers Series.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

What would you get if you combined the BBC, six Victorian novels, and a cheesy 1970s soap opera? Well, this! The Pallisers is as lavish in its aristocratic intrigues (political scandal and opportunity, lecherous dukes, palatial country houses, a world where everyone knows their place) as it is in its soap opera aesthetic (characters' tumultuous struggles for power, money, love). This made-for-television production is a strange blend of exquisite costuming, remarkable sets, and surprisingly good acting on the one hand and video-quality production and an utterly melodramatic script on the other. Definitely pleasurable viewing for all who enjoy watching the period passion, pomp, and politics of upper-class Victorians.

Set 1 contains the first 8 episodes of the BBC's 26-episode serialization of Anthony Trollope's Palliser novels (1865-1880), introducing Plantagenet Palliser and Lady Glencora, whose politically expedient marriage sets the stage for the rest of the Palliser dynasty's saga. The DVD's special features include a 36-page viewer's guide, an interview with Susan Hampshire (Lady Glencora), and information on Anthony Trollope, his fiction, and the Trollope Society. --Tara Chace

From the Back Cover

Set in the palatial country houses and grand Mayfair salons of mid-Victorian England, The Pallisers is a sprawling BBC saga of wealth, passion, power, intrigue and scandal.

Based on the six "political" novels by Anthony Trollope -- called the finest sequence of fiction ever written about British Parliamentary life -- and adapted by contemporary British novelist Simon Raven, this series proved powerfully addictive to television audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.

These first eight episodes introduce Plantagenet Palliser (Phillip Latham) and Lady Glencora (Emmy Award-winner Susan Hampshire), whose politically advantageous marriage sets the stage for this fascinating chronicle of three generations of a powerful aristocratic family. Also starring Anna Massey (Angels and Insects), Barbara Murray and Roland Culver as the formidable Palliser patriarch.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trollope without pain, August 9, 2000

By	Lyn W. Edinger (Durham, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews

If you are a fan of English costume drama, interested in amiable depiction of High Victorian Society, if you liked the most recent BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, and, most particularly, if you ever were forced to slog through Anthony Trollope's endless series of lengthy novels recounting the peregrinations of the Duke of Omnium, Phineas Finn, et al, then this is the series for you. It may be most interesting to the long suffering Trollope-reader. I believe that his novels were a sort of 1840s counterpart to modern cable TV. They were made to be read in the evenings, often aloud to gatherings of family and friends. And, since there was little competition for polite entertainment, there was undoubtedly little incentive for the listeners to want the stories rushed to an end. Hence, the elegantly written descriptions of drawing room rivalries, scrapes most often between the honorable and landholding wealthy and the rather dishonorable new-rich tended to drag on and on...and on. This TV treatment, although not a great commercial success in Britain when it was made thirty years ago, is therefore surprisingly successful - the acting, though criticised as stilted, actually is stylised. The basic drama of the situations (will the grand Duke of Omnium crush his defeated rival when they at last meet at some European gambling Spa? Will whatsisname, the preppy son of the Duke make good on his promise to marry the American adventuress?) comes across much better - and MUCH faster - through the TV episodes, and frankly make Trollope quite entertaining in the process.

Occasionally, TV takes narrative forms from the past and does make them paced and pallatable for new audiences. This series is still not for fans of fast editing, car crashes, and gore. It is, however, well-paced, mannered, elegant, wholesome and intelligent drama that should have been released to the public decades ago.

I have looked for it from time to time for over twenty years - having viewed these episodes as a young school teacher in Singapore in the 70s, where anything from Britain or America was a lifeline to home. I will look forward to watching it again, in senile rapture, rooting for the Duke and wishing ill on the many rascals that surround him.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fine, fine adaptation of Trollope's Palliser novels, July 14, 2003

By	Gary M. Greenbaum (Fairfax, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Pallisers, Set 1 (DVD)

This series adapts the six lengthy "Palliser" novels by Anthony Trollope into 26 episodes of delight and intrigue in Victorian England.

Susan Hampshire's Lady Glencora is without doubt the center of this series. Forced into a marriage with the wealthy but distracted Plantagenet Palliser, who seems far more interested in becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer than in his marriage, Lady Glencora must balance her relationship with her husband against that with another man, whom she has truly loved. Watching as the two Pallisers adjust their relationship to find their love is an absolute delight.

But this story is more than just the Pallisers. As the six lengthy novels are boiled down to 26 episodes (8 in the first set), we meet Phineas Finn, an Irish MP who is the title character of two of the books--one deemed a fine political novel, the other a suspenseful masterpiece. Both are well incorporated into the series. Barbara Murray amazes as Madame Max Goesler, a wealthy widow who interacts with the aristocratic Pallisers without ever letting her great good sense be overwhelmed by the privilege of associating with the creme de la creme.

Six novels boiled into a series requires a great ensemble cast, and one is provided. Such noted British TV actors as Derek Jacobi (later of I, Claudius) and Penelope Keith (of To the Manor Born) play small but important parts as the foppish Lord Fawn and his sister.

But in the final analysis, it all comes back to the relationship between Hampshire's Lady Glencora and Philip Latham's Plantagenet.

Well worth watching.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Pallisers-A monumental work, August 28, 2000

By	E. J. Robinson (Paris France) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Pallisers, Set 1 (DVD)

Based on the political novels by Trollope, which few read since they are a total of over 2000 pages, this series is one of the most intelligent television renderings of a work of literature that has been done, illustrating the strength of television over movies for the dramatisation of literature. I hope the rest of the episodes will be issued soon, too.