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PBS Masterpiece Theatre

Anna Bouverie, a clergyman's wife, has spent 20 years scrimping and saving to raise a family and to serve God and the parish on limited means. She organizes deanery suppers, makes cakes for local events, grows her own vegetables, and dresses herself and her family in second hand clothes. When her husband fails to get a promotion, and her younger daughter is subjected to constant bullying at the local primary school, Anna rebels and takes a job at the local supermarket. Earning her own money brings Anna independence, but it also brings the shocked disapproval of the parish and the icy fury of her husband. As loneliness and isolation increase, Anna is viewed with passionate interest by three very different men: Daniel Byrne, the newly-appointed archdeacon; Jonathan, his younger brother, a philosopher and academic; and Patrick O'Sullivan, the brash new owner of the old rectory. All three men are seduced by Anna's bold spirit and her sense of the unconventional. And, all three are destined to play a significant role as Anna's story unfolds.

Episode 1

Original US Airdate October 9, 1994

In the opening episode, Anna Bouverie is the rector's wife struggling to make ends meet and cope with the demands of her husband and his parishioners. On top of that, she is also dealing with her son Luke's adolescence and daughter Flora's unhappiness in school. Anna's frustration comes to a head when her husband is passed over for a promotion to Archdeacon. To help raise money to send Luke to India and Flora to private school, Anna takes a job at the local supermarket. Peter, her husband, sees this as an act of open rebellion against him and the church. It is left to the new Archdeacon, Daniel Byrne, to give Anna the support and understanding she needs. Eventually, things begin to look up for Anna. She secures a free place for Flora at St. Saviours Catholic School and Patrick O'Sullivan, the brash, wealthy businessman newly installed at the Old Rectory, hoping to win over Anna, offers Luke a job. Meanwhile, the village ladies unite in their support of Peter and show their disapproval of Anna by offering to take over her parish work. Their interference infuriates Anna and strains relations with her husband. Her growing alienation from him is deepened when at Easter service, Anna meets Daniel's younger brother Jonathan and they are immediate attracted to each other. The pressure becomes too much for Anna and she finally breaks down at the Deanery Supper. Hoping a break will do her good, she leaves to visit an old friend, a successful novelist living in Oxford.

Introduction by Russell Baker

The old folks' wisdom about marriage was that "man works from sun to sun, but woman's work is never done."

In short, wives were to stay home running round-the-clock support systems for husbands. The husband's responsibility was spelled out in that old Peggy Lee song to a no-good man: "Get out of here and get me some money too."

Not many marriages work this way anymore, but a lot of people wish they still did.

One who does is Peter Bouverie, the parish rector in the story we're beginning tonight. His wife Anna is approaching what pop psychologists call a mid-life crisis. And with ample justification...there has been too little love for too long between Peter and Anna. Something is about to break.

Closing Remarks by Russell Baker

Episode 2

Original US Airdate October 16, 1994

Anna's visit to Oxford provides more comfort to her friend than to Anna. She returns home to find nothing has changed and the parish support group reigning supreme. In desperation, she turns to Daniel for comfort, but finds it is Jonathan to whom she is closest. Luke, meanwhile, upset by his parents' constant bickering, is convinced that his mother is having an affair with Patrick O'Sullivan. Peter learns that Flora has a free place at St. Saviours and immediately tells the supermarket that Anna will be leaving work. This is the final straw for Anna and she resolves to bring matters to a head. Before she gets a chance to talk to him, Patrick's housekeeper comes to tell Peter that Anna and Patrick are having an affair.

Introduction by Russell Baker

Experts tell us the two most common roots of marital trouble are money and sex. Last time, it seemed to be money that was dividing Anna and Peter Bouverie.

Tonight, however, it becomes obvious that the Bouveries' marriage is also afflicted by the sex problem, and that may be even more dangerous.

If Anna has known this subconsciously all along, what finally brings it to the surface is a visit with her old friend Eleanor, who is miserable in her marriage and far more willing than Anna to talk frankly about why.

In bed, says Eleanor, her husband is "about as much fun as an old sock. I'd give my eye teeth," she says, "for a lover." There is no lover on Eleanor's horizon. Anna's prospects, on the other hand, seem highly promising, if a lover is what she wants.

Closing Remarks by Russell Baker

Episode 3

Original US Airdate October 23, 1994

After hearing that his wife may be having an affair, Peter goes to see the Archdeacon. On his way he is killed in an accident. At the funeral, the villagers and Anna's friends and family offer support and advice. Anna confesses to Daniel that she feels relief that Peter is dead. The church offers Anna a house, but she is determined to stand on her own feet at last and she refuses all offers of help. She takes a job teaching at St. Saviours and rents a house for her and the children. Finally, Anna turns down Jonathan's proposal of marriage. Although she loves him, it is her independence she really cherishes.

Introduction by Russell Baker

The nineteenth-century French feminist George Sand scandalized the bourgeoisie a hundred and fifty years ago when she wrote that "the marriage vow is an absurdity imposed by society."

This is precisely the view of marriage that's developing on the part of Anna Bouverie, the central figure in "The Rector's Wife," the story of a marital shipwreck.

Last time we saw Anna taking a lover -- the Archdeacon's charming and sensitive brother Jonathan -- in a field of yellow flowers while her husband Peter seemed near total breakdown.

Anna desperately needs what popular psychology nowadays calls "fulfillment." Peter desperately needs help.

What he gets instead is alarming gossip from his parishioners about his wife. The shipwreck is almost complete.

Closing Remarks by Russell Baker

Masterpiece Theatre the Rector's Wife

by Tony Scott

((Sun. (9), 9-9:30 p.m.; Sun. (16, 23), 9-10 p.m., PBS))
 
Filmed in England by Talisman Films Ltd. for Channel 4. Exec producer, Alan Shallcross; producer, Alan Wright; director, Giles Foster; writer, Hugh Whitemore, based on a novel by Joanne Trollope.
 
Cast: Lindsay Duncan, Jonathan Coy, Simon Fenton, Lucy Dawson, Joyce Redman, Ronald Pickup, Stephen Dillane, Miles Anderson, Rynagh O'Grady, Frederick Treves , Prunella Scales, Pam Ferris, Jonathan Cecil, Judy Riley, Eliza Buckingham, Susan Gott, Tom Bradford, Gabrielle Lloyd, Geoffrey Chater, Madge Hindle, George Raistrick, Carol Macready, Muriel Pavlow, Jonty Stephens, Morgan Jones, Mary MacLeod, Orla Brady, Marie Louise McKenzie, Helen Fraser, Yvonne Manners, Adam Lewis, Madhav Sharma, Mary Roscoe, Isobel Raine, Angus Barnes, Melanie Ramsay, Colin Wakefield, Jo Kendall.

Host: Russell Baker.

This contemporary story of a British village vicar's wife who is inundated with duties and obligations has moments of dramatic strength undermined by seeping soapsuds under Giles Foster's direction. Upper-lip message seems to be that if you want independence, beware of good people trying to do the right thing.

In this case, the wife is too remote for viewers to figure out until the final hour. For 2 1/2 hours Anna (Lindsay Duncan) struggles with life.

Husband Peter (Jonathan Coy) gets passed over for the new archdeacon spot assigned to newcomer Daniel Byrne (Ronald Pickup). Anna can't cope with his resulting desolation, and she finds herself being boxed in by well-intentioned locals and sees no escape.

Anna wants daughter Flora (Lucy Dawson) to attend a private school, where she'll be happier. To pay for the difference, Anna, not a tidy thinker, gets a job in a supermarket without telling husband Peter, who fusses a lot over the idea when he hears of it.

The archdeacon's younger brother Daniel (Stephen Dillane), who knows stifled emotions when he sees them, starts hanging around Anna and she falls for him. In a burg where everyone's always barging in on everyone else, she and Daniel lie down together among the buttercups in the open meadowland; they just don't care.  [editor's note:  the younger brother's name is Jonathan, not Daniel]

The tale unwinds unmercifully, with Peter, continuously staring at ledgers, suffering bravely. He's obviously having a breakdown, but no one really notices.

All the misery takes place before Witold Stock's immaculate camerawork and within Cecilia Brereton's rightfully cluttered production design. Prunella Scales puts everything in order in the third hour when, as Anna's gin-sipping friend Marjorie, she grabs a lovely scene she shares with Duncan. It's scripter Hugh Whitemore's finest moment.

Duncan is graceful and attractive but, at times, seems to blank with weariness and confusion. She's just not Ibsen's Nora nor Emma Bovary. Coy is good as the rector, and Joyce Redman is a delight as Anna's actress-mother, while Dillane properly insinuates his way into his lover role.

Russell Baker dryly continues his hosting duties for "Masterpiece Theatre," but he's also becoming a long-winded instructor, which isn't necessary.

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