"Our Mutual Friend" is the story of a drowned heir to a fortune. On his death the fortune goes to an illiterate servant named Boffin. Boffin (Leo McKern) brings two young people into his home: (1) Bella Wilfer (Jane Seymour), the intended (by will!) of the deceased; and, as his secretary, the mysterious John Rokesmith (John McEnery).
The cast is uniformly good, though I wish I could make two baseball-like transfers from the 1998 version, viz. Keeley Hawes as Lizzie Hexam and Kenneth Cranham as Silas Wegg--especially since Wegg is one of my favorite characters in all Dickens. But, alas, one can't have everything.
The post-"Live and Let Die" but still young Jane Seymour is exceptionally lovely here and very good, though with little sense she was an international superstar in waiting despite her Bond experience.
John McEnery, whether playing Mercutio or Kerensky or Rokesmith, is always worth watching. And Leo McKern was born to play a Dickens character.
The bad: well, it's 1970s British TV. That means it has long, stagey sections on videotape with occasion exteriors on grainy film. This encourages some overacting. Jenny Wren, for instance, a mere annoyance in the book, is here an outright aggravation. But then, some of Dickens' creatures simply don't travel well to another medium. I occasionally feel like drowning Mister Sloppy.
Fortunately, Seymour and McEnery dial back their performances for the small screen. Both are perfect. I hadn't seen this version before I read the book and I envisioned someone like McEnery for the role.
As for Alfie Bass in the pivotal role as Silas Wegg, he's Alfie Bass and his Wegg lacks the darker shading of the 1998 Wegg, who is also, strangely enough, funnier. But no adaptation of Dickens is perfect.
