Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7046 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-09-26
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 71 minutes

DVD Description
Dennis Potter's play is set in the Forest of Dean, on a summer day in 1943. Seven children go out to play. The seven children are all played by adult actors.

Synopsis
"When we dream of childhood we take our present selves with us. It is not the adult world writ small; childhood is the adult world writ large" - Dennis Potter.

Dennis Potter's acclaimed television play - though the most straightforward and realistic of his popular works - is both an hilarious and incredibly moving story. Through the simple act of using adults in the roles, Potter was able to emphasise the darker aspects of children's innocence and imagination, creating an altogether more complex and ambivalent picture of that "land of lost content". On an idyllic summer afternoon in the summer of 1943, a group of children play in the West Country hills, fields and forests. With no adults around, they indulge in spontaneous games and horseplay - sometimes echoing the distant war, at other times revealing their own insecurities and petty vindictiveness. But as they tease, fantasise and fight the day away, their innocence is about to be destroyed forever...

Starring a wealth of British acting talent including Michael Elphick, Robin Ellis, Colin Welland and Helen Mirren.

Customer Reviews

Superb
Disconcerting at first to see grown-ups playing children's parts, then by turns amusing, chilling and finally devastating, this production has held up very well. The actors are brilliant, and any sight of Colin Welland on dvd is most welcome.
The story moves from a bunch of kids larking around in rural wartime England, into darker territory as we learn to what extent the child is father to the man.