MASTERPIECE REVERB: Forsyte Saga Rocks

There are critics who think no rock sensibility would be caught dead watching MASTERPIECE THEATER. Feh. One great reason to tune into the current serial, FORSYTE SAGE, is Damian Lewis as Soames, who most will recognize from his roles as Maj. Richard D. Winters in Spielberg’s BAND OF BROTHERS. I had no clue this guy was British until I saw FORSYTE, which is a remake of MT’s first great mini-series success in the early ’70s (the public television event that spawned ROOTS and kept Richard Chamberlin in mutton chops through his difficult post-Kildaire years.) In fact, FORSTYE soars on its modernist airs, and its social breezes have a rock sensibility: in this rendition, our sympathies are completely with Jolyon (Rupert Graves), the one Forsyte who’s not so full of respectability anxiety that he runs off with his governess for a happier life. Geoffrey Burgon’s dry yet witless score will leave you wanting something more like the Kinks, but the pace never lags, the close-ups are riveting and almost every performance a wonder. We thought Ioan Gruffudd not weighty enough to pull off Bosinney’s tirades, and his sudden misfortune just before his trial is simply too convenient a plot turn. But when the statuesque Gina McKee comes home to Soames, her husband the unrepentant rapist, you want to rescue her, just like Jolyon can’t.