Love on a Branch Line (TV series)
| Love on a Branch Line | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Costume drama, Comedy |
| Based on | Love on a Branch Line by John Hadfield |
| Written by | David Nobbs (screenplay) |
| Directed by | Martyn Friend |
| Starring |
Michael Maloney Leslie Phillips Maria Aitken Abigail Cruttenden Cathryn Harrison |
| Composer(s) | Ilona Sekacz |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of series | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 4 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | John Reynolds Alan Strachan |
| Producer(s) | Jacqueline Davis |
| Running time | 50 minutes per episode |
| Production company(s) | Theatre of Comedy Entertainment DLT Entertainment Ltd. New Penny Productions |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC1 |
| Picture format | 14:9 |
| Audio format | Stereo |
| Original release | 12 June – 3 July 1994 |
Love on a Branch Line is a British television adaptation of the 1959 novel Love on a Branch Line by John Hadfield. It was broadcast from 12 June to 3 July 1994 airing on the BBC in four 50-minute episodes.
Jasper Pye a refined civil servant is sent to the rural Suffolk/Norfolk counties border to close the Office of Output Statistics which has outlived its usefulness. Instead he becomes seduced by the small idyllic world he finds there, making his task rather more difficult than he had imagined. He soon finds himself becoming entangled with the local aristocrat's three beautiful daughters.
Jasper Pye is a polite, honest civil servant who lives with his mother. One night when he hears his girlfriend Deirdre describe him as 'a bore' at a party, he decides he needs an urgent, radical change in his life. The following morning he heads into the ministry, determined to resign his job and move to Paris to become a painter. Instead he is dissuaded by his superior, who instead wants him to go to Arcady Hall in Suffolk where the Office of Output Statistics, a small government department has been working since 1940 when it was commandeered during the Battle of Britain and overlooked for closure for a number of years, despite its apparent lack of usefulness.
Initially reluctant to take the assignment the diffident Jasper is persuaded by his boss. He is told that his remit is essentially to close the place down, though he has an entirely "free hand" in the matter. Jasper prepares to leave for the small village of Arcady where Arcady Hall is located. Symbolically he recovers his umbrella which he had shoved into a flowerbed in St James' Park when planning to abandon the civil service, thinking to himself. "Well, it was a rather good umbrella, and it might rain"
He catches a train to Arcady, but finds that the branch line that runs there from the neighbouring town had closed four years before. He instead has to walk into the village. He arrives to find Arcady Hall a magnificent sight but seemingly far too large for the small department of three employees who work there. He quickly finds himself the talk of the town, as the 'man from the ministry' who cuts quite a dash. In particular he strikes up a relationship with each of Lord Flamborough's daughters. Chloe, the eldest, trapped in an unhappy marriage with her drunken, wayward husband Lionel Virley, her first cousin and heir to the estate. Belinda the flirtatious and uninhibited middle daughter and the wildly gothic romantic youngest, Matilda.
...
Wikipedia