Product Description

DVD Description Dramatisation of the 1932/33 Test cricket series between England and Australia. Played in Australia, the series gained notoriety in Australian and worldwide cricketing history for the fact that the English team applied a bowling technique called "leg theory", or more commonly, Bodyline. This technique involved bowlers bowling the ball directly at the batsman's body, and resulted in many of the Australian team receiving numerous bruises and injuries, with batsman Bert Oldfield sustaining a cracked skull. The series generated much anger and resentment towards the English team within Australia and seriously damaged Anglo-Australian cricketing relations at the time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12261 in DVD
• Original language: English

Customer Reviews

Role Reversal
Highest quality production with excellent sets and location filming. Don't worry if you don't like cricket. I didn't when I first saw this on TV back in the 80s (and I still don't!) but as a period drama it's sumptuous and absolutely gripping. The role reversal is fascinating to watch. It's the English team who are the 'bad guys', using the cricket ball as a high-speed missile to devastating effect while the Australian batsmen tremble and flinch at the wicket and protest to the umpire over 'unsportsmanlike' behaviour. 20 years after it screened in the UK, I'm still waiting eagerly for its release (why is it taking so long to come out in Region 1/2 formats?
Best scene: the first time the England captain, Douglas Jardine, explains his plans to members of his team while sitting at a dinner table in full evening dress and using salt and pepper pots to represent players on the field! The atmospheric background music makes it seem as if he's just announced the invention of the atomic bomb. In cricket terms, he had! Best performance: Hugo Weaving, as the sulky, buttoned-down Jardine, dominates effortlessly throughout. If he didn't get an award for this, he should have done!

Well worth tracking down!
This Australian-made TV mini-series was originally shown in the UK during the 1980s, repeated during non-peak daytime television, then to my knowledge never shown again, despite many requests. Nor has it ever been released in the UK and is still only available as an import boxed set, though a UK version is apparently intended (no release date yet).

The subject, of course, is the 1933 `bodyline' test series in Australia, a famous event to cricket-lovers but not really meaningful to anyone else. Yet the series is portrayed as a `human' story, of three individuals in particular - Jardine, Bradman and Larwood - and set against a background of the Raj, Empire and personal emotion. To that end, the viewer does not need to know about, nor even be interested in cricket to enjoy this excellent series; my wife, for instance, found it compelling watching, despite her knowledge of cricket being zero.

The first episode - the first of 7 each lasting 45 minutes - is a little slow, lingering somewhat on the love interests, but once it gets going the series is captivating; you won't want to wait for the next episode! Naturally cricket features large, but there is no need to have any knowledge of the game, with only the odd cricket term perhaps needing explanation. It is the human drama which is excellently portrayed, and gives a clear impression of just how important the Ashes test series were in those far off days.

The series portrays the events as `the day England declared war on Australia'! Well, it was escalated to high diplomatic levels, though it still meant little to many suffering from the Great Depression. But the series is remarkably accurate in its portrayal, with very little licence taken; anyone lucky enough to have access to the BBC programme `Forty Minutes' on the bodyline matches, where several survivors recollect personal experience, will be impressed by how the storyline follows the real events in great detail - even down to actual quotes.

Scripting and direction are excellent, but perhaps what really makes this series so good is the level of acting, from practically everyone involved. Hugo Weaving, later to have his profile raised in the Matrix and Lord of the Rings film series, is excellent as Jardine, and Gary Sweet and Jim Holt portray Bradman and Larwood to perfection. There are also very good supporting performance, perhaps Rhys McConnochie as Pelham Warner being particularly outstanding. Only some of the bowling and strokeplay is not up to standard but the actors can hardly be blamed!

Technically the DVD is OK, with Dolby 5.1 and subtitles as options, though at times it looks a little `worn', but not enough to spoil viewing. A few clips of the original have been omitted, inexplicably, and certainly not to fit them to the disks; the first two have 3 episodes each, the third disk has just the one, so space could not be the reason. Still, nothing which will ruin the story. But there is one aspect which is of particular importance; the DVD available at the current time is region 4 (Australia) so you WILL need a multi-region capable player to view this.

If you remember the series you will want to watch it again. If you don't like cricket but want to know what all the fuss of the `Ashes' is about, or if you just like human drama, you will enjoy this. Seek it out, there's no knowing when or if it will ever be available as a UK release.