I recall reading the original novel in English class at Huddersfield Polytechnic along with D H Lawrence and Jane Austen. It had a lot in common with Deborah Moggach's CLOSE RELATIONS - with a family unit splintered into diverse directions, undergoing marital and romantic woes - only to be reunited together at the end. As expected for a series of its type and time, there was copious nudity - though most of it involved Anton Rodgers' middle-aged willie - he married Elizabeth Garvie shortly afterwards so it impressed somebody! Clare Clifford's character suffers a boring marriage to Barry Stanton's oafish builder. But the truly shocking section involved Ursula Howell's marriage to Richard Vernon. Howell's suffers a debilitating illness for which there seemed no cure or cause until one fateful night....I remember it to this day. She finds that Vernon has suffered a fatal heart attack closing a window while preparing her nightly glass of warm milk. But the shocking moment is when she discovers her pet cat dead after lapping up the dropped milk. The old codger was secretly poisoning her!! The melodramatic punch of this stayed with me for years. A girl I knew at Huddersfield commented on it to me the next day. The reunion of the family at the end seems to indicate that hell is other people and the birth family unit is best.
Review of Something in Disguise
