The Forsyte Saga: a Victorian Gem Polished and set perfectly

Directors: Christopher Menaul, David Morre

Writers: John Galsworthy(novel),Stephen Mallatratt, Jan McVerry 

 The Forsyte Saga is a series of three novels and two interludes published between 1906 and 1921 by John Galsworthy. They chronicle the vicissitudes of the leading members of an upper-middle-class British family, similar to Galsworthy's own. 

 Only a few generations removed from their farmer ancestors, the family members are keenly aware of their status as "new money". The Forsyte Saga earned John Galsworthy the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1932.


This melodrama has everything to keep you warm on a winter’s night. Sex, Passion, and Possession, intertwined with Intrigue, Lust and Betrayal.  In the midst of this, there is Duty versus Desire and Change over Generations. Mortality is an important issue because it forces people to let go. Yet does love Die?


Damian Lewis as Soames Forsyte and Gina McKee as Irene Forsyte are simply superior to mere actors for the range and abilities displayed throughout. The rest of the cast meets them and together they all takes us to new heights. 

    The Victorian costumes vie for our attentions time and time again. In a ballroom scene Gina McKee seems to have stepped out of a John Singer Sargent painting making me to believe that it was a red dress that “Madame X” was wearing. 
                                                                       The Settings are perfect from the Victorian drawing rooms to the cricket at oxford . The main Character of the setting is a house “Robin Hill” that is central to the story. This English country house is not the estate of “Brideshead Revisited” or “Remains of the Day”.This house lives along with the Characters reminding me of Charles Mackintosh’s work.

This Saga is true find for an anglophile and the repressed passions in us all. Cheers, Enjoy!