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Goldeneyeroyale
Reviews
Tales of the Unexpected: The Facts of Life (1988)
Truly bog-standard standard TOTE episode
This episode sums up what the vast majority of TOTE was about: OK scripts, good acting, horrendously cheap sets.
The story is fine, but not an easy one to adapt for the screen. The original short story by Somerset Maugham was short even by his standards, and the director really has to struggle to stretch the story out for the full 25 minutes. It drags a fair amount, particularly at the beginning - there's a difference between setting the scene and just waffling around.
The main problem though is how cheap the whole thing looks. The original short story had a Cambridge student playing tennis in Monte Carlo, and that was changed here to a Norfolk boy going to London for a fencing competition. Not a problem with that, had the London scenes been shot well, which they weren't. The exclusive gambling club for wealthy high rollers looks just like a provincial bingo hall - it's extremely difficult to persuade an audience that the main character is astonished by all the wealth around him when he's trying to look impressed at a breezeblock auditorium. When all the extras are wearing horribly baggy tuxedos, they look like teenagers at prom in rented suits rather than the cream of London society that they are supposed to be.
The acting itself is fine, but there is horribly little of it actually to do, because as I said, the story is threadbare. It's a nice read, but if you can finish it in 3 minutes, it probably isn't a good idea to adapt it for TV.
This isn't a dire episode in the way of Last of the Midnight Gardeners, but not is it an all time great one like Shatterproof, the Landlady, Lamb to the Slaughter or Man from the South. If you're a TOTE fan then it's worth a look, otherwise don't bother.