Sons and Lovers - D H Lawrence (ITV 2003)

Beginning with the marriage of Gertrude and Walter, the story speeds through the beginnings of their loveless marriage. Walter is a hard drinking and emotionally distant coal miner. Gertrude is deeply disappointed. Three children arrive in quick succession, William, Paul and Annie. More fast forward and William succumbs to TB, Annie is married off, leaving Paul, an aspiring artist and clerk at a surgical supplies factory, to sort out his tangled allegiances – first with the lovely Miriam and then with the feisty and married Clara – all the while telling his mother that she’s the centre of his emotional universe.

Sons and Lovers is a faithful and very long adaptation of Lawrence’s novel. Although there’s lots of onscreen sex, the emotions are distant and alienating and it’s only when the story begins to become complicated in its second half, does this ambitious series start to become involving.

Shot on location in Nottinghamshire and featuring a cast of good but unknown English actors, Sons and Lovers rewards the persistent viewer. At 193 minutes, it’s a real commitment. Out on DVD, Sons and Lovers offers a few extras in the form of a Lawrence biography and bibliography and cast filmographies but its real achievement is to make the viewer realise that it really is grim up north –and what’s more, it’s grim because people made it that way.