Adapted by the estimable Dennis Potter from the 1964 novel by Angus Wilson, the British miniseries Late Call starred veteran character actress Dandy Nichols as Sylvia Calvert, a lifelong employee of a seaside hotel. Upon her retirement, Sylvia and her ex-soldier husband Arthur (Leslie Dwyer) moved in with their prissy son and his family in New Town of Carshall. As she struggled to adapt to her son's confining lifestyle, Sylvia reminisced on the "good old days" of 1911, when so much happened to her in so little a space of time. Characteristically, Dennis Potter jettisoned most of the original novel to concentrate exclusively on the prologue, set in the aforementioned 1911, the better to indulge in his traditional "backward and forward in time and reality" narrative technique. The four 50-minute episodes of Late Call were telecast by BBC2 from March 1 to 22, 1975.
by Hal Erickson
synopsis
