Sinn und Sinnlichkeit

The advantage this television version has over the later 1995 film version directed by Ang Lee is that due to its length it allows more important scenes to be shown. This good BBC version keeps in the visit of Edward Ferrers to Barton Cottage and of Willoughby to see Marianne when she is ill. It also deletes the third sister Margaret, which I think is to the good.

It is important when doing Jane Austen not to over act, as suppression makes for tension, and in this the actors do a fine job. The scenes between Elinor Dashwood and Lucy Steele are excellent, seething and polite at the same time. Julia Chambers as Lucy Steele is excellent and equally as good as Imogen Stubbs in the 1995 film.

The male actors are not all bland, Donald Douglas gives a jolly performance and Peter Gale is perfectly unctuous as John Dashwood, but also sympathetic, caught as he is between a domineering wife and mother in law. Bosco Hogan and Robert Swann are a bit dull however.

This is not a sumptuous Hollywood version but fine on its own terms.

I love the book, and as much as I do love the 1995 Ang Lee film my favourite version to date is the 2008 version. This 1981 series is very good though, only let down in my opinion by an abrupt ending and Robert Swann's dull Colonel Brandon. However, it is handsomely photographed, and the scenery and costumes look absolutely gorgeous. The music is also effective in its simplicity. The script while not as witty as the Ang Lee film is still literate and true in spirit to Jane Austen's language, and the story while not quite exploring a couple of scenes as well as the 2008 series is still moving and not too rushed or leisurely, in fact it adopts a slow(but never laborious) pace that was perfect considering how the story of the book unfolds. Apart from Swann, I thought the acting was fine. Of the two sisters Mariann and Elinor the Mariann of Tracey Childs I found better. Winslet in the 1995 film is more subtle, but Childs is still quite affecting. Irene Richard is excellent in her scenes between Julia Chambers' Lucy Steele, and is closer than age than Emma Thompson as well as spikier and more confrontational, an approach I liked. Julia Chambers' Lucy is wonderfully catty, Donald Douglas gives a performance of jollity as Sir John, Peter Gale is a sympathetic John Dashwood and Bosco Hogan and Peter Woodward are a dashing Edward and Willoughby respectively. All in all, I liked it very much, though of the three Sense and Sensibility adaptations I've seen thus far it is my least favourite. 8/10 Bethany Cox

An excellent adaptation of the Austen novel, though the production values can`t compare with the later film. The script is faithful to the original. The performances by the male leads are a bit bland.

Emma Thompson(Elinor) in the 1995 version scripts herself more time on screen compared to Kate Winslet(Marianne).This version focuses on BOTH of the sisters equally. This version is far more faithful to the novel than the movie made in 1995. The only flaw in this version is the mysterious disappearance (non-inclusion) of the youngest sister, Margaret.

Well as a lover of Jane Austen one would be hard pressed to do a reproduction of one of her books and disappoint me. S&S was a pretty well done miniseries, most BBC miniseries are well done. There was a much more book and a more through representation of all the minor characters in this movie than in the 1995 Sense and Sensibility directed by Ang Lee and staring Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson. However the 1981 BBC miniseries was seriously lacking in a couple vital points, the omission of the youngest Dashwood daughter, Margaret and this viewer found the leads of Marranne and Elinor to be so abysmally portrayed I really didn't care a bit about what happened to their characters. These women weren't lovable or very likable. Overall, between to two leads, Tracey Childs as Marriann was the better portrayal. Irene Richard's portrayal of Elinor was so dead pan and empty of any emotion, at all, that much of the movie containing her was difficult to sit through. Over all, for the Austen fan this is a must see movie, but only for the more complete story and representations. Especially the devilishly catty Miss Lucy Steele who in the Ang Lee S&S is very under portrayed.