Philip Saville was a prolific, versatile and a pioneering director especially on videotape.
His three best known productions are Count Dracula, Boys from the Blackstuff and The Life and Loves of a She-Devil.
Saville adapted August Strindberg's play The Creditors. He has shortened it and updated it to Sweden in the 1950s.
It is a three hander, the drama opens with some outside location shooting as a man observes a woman stepping on to a boat with some people.
The man is Gustave who was previously married to the woman, Tekla.
Adolph is an artist now married to Tekla. He never met Gustave. In his studio is an oversized photograph of Tekla. Gustave comes to visit Adolph, he has recently befriended Adolph who suffers from epilepsy.
Like Iago from Othello. Gustave fills Adolph's head with negative opinions of his wife. Gustave preys on his insecurities and health. It is obvious that Gustave is trying to break the marriage up.
Later Gustave meets up with Tekla and the devious man charms his ex wife knowing that Adolph is eavesdropping.
I have no idea why the play was bought forward to the 1950s. The set decoration, fashion is very much of the 1970s and so it would had worked as a modern day piece.
Billed as a tragicomedy. There is no comedy here. Susannah York is vivacious as Tekla. It would had been a casting coup for ITV as she had nominated for an Oscar two years earlier.
Kenneth Haigh as Gustave is all bulging eyes. It might work in the theatre but on television he looks like a two bit villain.
The Creditors is not a successful adaptation for television despite Saville's trickery. It is just too maudlin and gloomy.
His three best known productions are Count Dracula, Boys from the Blackstuff and The Life and Loves of a She-Devil.
Saville adapted August Strindberg's play The Creditors. He has shortened it and updated it to Sweden in the 1950s.
It is a three hander, the drama opens with some outside location shooting as a man observes a woman stepping on to a boat with some people.
The man is Gustave who was previously married to the woman, Tekla.
Adolph is an artist now married to Tekla. He never met Gustave. In his studio is an oversized photograph of Tekla. Gustave comes to visit Adolph, he has recently befriended Adolph who suffers from epilepsy.
Like Iago from Othello. Gustave fills Adolph's head with negative opinions of his wife. Gustave preys on his insecurities and health. It is obvious that Gustave is trying to break the marriage up.
Later Gustave meets up with Tekla and the devious man charms his ex wife knowing that Adolph is eavesdropping.
I have no idea why the play was bought forward to the 1950s. The set decoration, fashion is very much of the 1970s and so it would had worked as a modern day piece.
Billed as a tragicomedy. There is no comedy here. Susannah York is vivacious as Tekla. It would had been a casting coup for ITV as she had nominated for an Oscar two years earlier.
Kenneth Haigh as Gustave is all bulging eyes. It might work in the theatre but on television he looks like a two bit villain.
The Creditors is not a successful adaptation for television despite Saville's trickery. It is just too maudlin and gloomy.