The Thomas Hardy Experience by John A. A. Logan
It was a strangely popular video in our school in 1982. There would be the weekly Saturday trip to the video shop, and repeatedly Far From the Madding Crowd would be chosen to take back and watch on Saturday night. This was the 1967 film, directed by John Schlesinger, with Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Terence Stamp…a 3-hour kaleidoscope of technicolour delights…but not an immediately obvious choice for early-or-pre-teen Saturday night video fodder. It had drama, of course…Gabriel Oak’s dog chasing those sheep over the cliff…Sergeant Troy with that flashing sword…but, overall, it still remains a mystery to me how that film was so able to charm us, and somehow fit in perfectly with our usual diet of Frankenstein/Dracula horrors, Bond films, etc. In 1983, an experiment of sorts took place, and I was the first person selected to be sent out from our school on the high hillside, down by bus into the village of Fortrose, to see if I could slot in seamlessly and join that scho...