The Good Soldier
The Good Soldier was a Granada TV play first broadcast in 1981, based on the 1915 novel of the same name by Ford Madox Ford. It is a romantic tragedy about two turn-of-the-century couples - one American, one British - who regularly holiday together at a spa in Germany.[1]
Stars included Jeremy Brett (best known for the 'Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' series) as Edward Ashburnham and Robin Ellis (best known as Captain Ross Poldark in the BBC classic series 'Poldark') as John Dowell[2].
Filming on the SVRSevern Valley Railway
Two days of scenes were shot at Arley during autumn 1980,[3], with the broadcast taking place in April 1981.
In the first scene Leonora Ashburnham describes how many years earlier her husband had been involved in a scandal after 'comforting' a distressed servant girl in a railway carriage compartment. The incident, seen as a short flashback, was filmed in a GWRGreat Western Railway compartment in the vicinity of the County boundary with Bromley Farm visible on the hilltop in the background.
In the second longer scene, GWR Pannier 5764 and two GWRGreat Western Railway carriages arrive at Arley's platform 1, where Dowell and Ashburnham escort Nancy Rufford onto the train. The train then departs northwards, while the scene ends with a shot of the outside the station as the two men depart by horse carriage.
Links to both scenes on YouTube are included below.
See also
List of film and TV productions filmed on the Severn Valley Railway
References
- ↑ Internet Movie Database (retrieved 18 February 2016)]
- ↑ .Wikipedia (retrieved 12 November 2015)
- ↑ SVRSevern Valley Railway News 57
