The Forsytes review: Channel 5 goes back to in time with this laughably limp reboot of a 1960s classic
Channel 5 has long since shed its reputation as the home of football, films and another f-word. In fact, it now seems to be aiming to recreate the BBC of the 1960s and 70s.
A revival of All Creatures Great and Small has been a big hit, while the channel recently announced it was resuscitating Play for Today, and even ran a 1970s season earlier this year.
And now here's The Forsytes (Channel 5, Mon, 9pm) a third TV reboot for John Galsworthy's sweeping saga of Victorian poshos and their tangled love lives, which was a huge hit for the Beeb in the late 60s.
But this is a far cry from the stolid, middle-aged stiff upper lipness of Kenneth More and Eric Porter as feuding Forsytes Jolyon and Soames.
Here, Jolyon (Danny Griffin) is a virile young men with a Princess Diana-style bouffant hairdo and neatly-trimmed beard – maybe another nod to the Beeb of the 70s, as he channels Top of the Pops-era Noel Edmonds rather than a dashing blade of Victorian high society.
He's also prone to taking his top off in the boxing gym and positioning himself just so in the golden light flooding in through the gym's windows – all the better to catch the glint reflecting off his sweat-sheened pecs.
It's a scene so gratuitous and unnecessary – less than 30 seconds long and with no dialogue – it makes you laugh out loud.
Although, given The Forsytes is written by Debbie Horsfield, who scripted the BBC's hit reboot of Poldark, you can't help thinking it represents a lame attempt to replicate the shirtless Aiden Turner shot which gave the nation an attack of the vapours 10 years ago.
Meanwhile, the dastardly antagonists – Jolyon's uncle James (Jack Davenport)and cousin Soames (Joshua Orpin) – have moustaches which they just manage to restrain themselves from twirling, 1920s silent movie villain-style.
There's a lot of exposition in this first episode, as we plough through who is who and how they are related, while Francesca Annis as Forsyte matriarch Grandmama Anne, tells us exactly how unpleasant the entire clan is.
“Do you know what a Forsyte is?” she asks. “A Forsyte is someone who knows the value of stock and family and reputation. You must never ask questions, never contradict and never, ever fail to come to scratch.”
As if that didn't make them sound like soulless automatons, Anne later tells us they are all just philistines with a healthy side helping of snobbery.
“It isn't that the Forsytes dislike art; they understand its value provided they can buy and sell it. Just they don't care for artists and the certainly don't wish to be related to them,” she sniffs.
All this poses problems for poor, sensitive Jolyon who, in one of the most clearly-signposted plot points in any TV drama, has the hots for poor, creative dressmaker Louisa (Eleanor Tomlinson).
In an improbable twist of fate involving a debutante ball, a silk gown and a glass of carelessly-handled red wine, Jolyon and Louisa meet for the first time in years after a torrid affair in Venice, and mere moments later it's strongly hinted that Louisa's children are the result.
It may have some trenchant points to make about class and family and the clash of commerce and creativity, but on the evidence of this ponderous first episode, it's hard to tell.
It's also unintentionally funny in places. Aside from the sweaty boxing scene, a man having a heart attack is ignored by his social-climbing wife as she leaves him gasping for air on a park bench to run after Soames, shouting an introduction.
Meanwhile, in the offices of the Forsyte business, people wander around bowing at each as they hand over piece of paper, while there is much self-important chit-chat about signing contracts.
Perhaps the only thing that holds the interest is using it as a case study in 'ooh, that's her out of that thing' TV watching.
As well as Tomlinson and Davenport – who hams it up no end as the scowling villain – there's True Blood's Stephen Moyer as Jolyon's dad, Tuppence Middleton from Downton Abbey, Doctor Who's Millie Gibson, Fiona Button from BBC divorce drama The Split, and Tomlinson's Poldark co-star Tristan Sturrock.
With such a cast, and the writing of Horsfield, you would imagine The Forsytes could be a rollicking, spicy dish of love and revenge.
Unfortunately, it's more a 70s dinner party menu, prawn cocktail and black forest gateau – limp, bland and uninspiring. Let's just leave that to the decade of flares and the three-day week.