About Last Tango in Halifax Season 1
Last Tango in Halifax Season 1 Product Details
Actors: Various
Directors: Various
Format: Multiple Formats, Color, NTSC
Language: English
Subtitles: English
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
Number of discs: 2
Rated: Not Rated
Studio: BBC Home Entertainment
DVD Release Date: November 12, 2013
Run Time: 336 minutes
Last Tango in Halifax Season 1 Review
By Lenore Ralston on October 26, 2013
Format: DVD Verified Purchase
Last Tango in Halifax is one of the most charming romantic comedies I have seen. I am smitten; Bravo Sally Wainright! It took me a bit to determine why. My answer: the six episodes are full to bursting with tender moments - every possible combination of a better foot forward, an open heart, a kind exchange - despite the messy, dysfunctional underlying storylines which provide humor and poignancy as a vast display of human being-ness is made available to us by Sally Wainright, writer and creator.
Sarah Lawrence as Caroline knocked my socks off with her acting - what a range. She delivers a performance right up there with the usually stand-alone Meryl Streep. She is so convincing in her scenes with Nina Sosanya it is hard to believe she doesn't swing both ways. She conveys aching vulnerability, delicious humor, imperious self-confidence, and a devastating sadness - through her eyes, her body language, her voice inflections. When her mother rejects her when she announces her love for Kate, the pain she conveys is breath taking. Sarah is warm, funny, sad, sexy, upper class, lower class, exhausted, frisky, academic - she brings it all.
The rest of the cast is of the same excellent caliber - perhaps with fewer fabulous speeches (Sarah has a plum part in Series 1). Gillian is wonderful. She, too, has an acting range that evokes compassion, humor, and a very believable down-to-earth element as she pulls the clutch on a jeep or hoists hay for her sheep (although one has to wonder how she got off on such a wrong path with a father like Derek Jacobi).
Perhaps the most challenging character is the one played by Anne Reid as Celia. Celia's internalized bitterness and bigotry actually turn her character into an unrecognizably ugly person. Her rejection and heartlessness towards Caroline is stunning. The blow-up in the kitchen, when Celia comes to tell Caroline that Alan is finished with her is powerful and on-point: believable and gut wrenching. I found myself awed by the change in Ann Reid's face when her racial and homophobic bigotry expressed itself; an amazing piece of acting.
And of course, what is not to love about Derek Jacobi! As Gillian says, he has something good etched right through him and it comes across. His presence in the series is anchoring. He is essential; he grounds it all. Further, the man has some serious dance moves!
In the end, there isn't a weak performance in the bunch; great casting, great ensemble work, wonderful direction and cinematography. Nina Sosanya is a perfect foil for the volatile Caroline. She is soft, restrained, subtly communicative and sexy. John (Tony Gardner), the feckless husband, is wonderfully done. He is hilarious. The most amusing series of emotions ripple silently across his face to great effect: his outrage when Caroline throws water on him in the garden, or even funnier, when she flips off her reason for going over to his ex-lover's place was to have sex!
The tender moments with Caroline's and Gillian's boys are perhaps my favorites in the series: Lawrence's young boy's heart, intent on protecting his mother from meanness. She, in return, provides her grown-up comforting, letting him know she is big and can handle mean. William's consistent sweetness and protectiveness of his mother in the face of his weak and selfish father: easily accepting Caroline's new found love with Kate, helping her verbalize her truth, and having a birthday card ready at the stroke of midnight. Who wouldn't wish to have a son like William. And Raff - you can see his love for his mother in the scene after Alan (Derek Jacobi) and Celia (Ann Reid) are found after their night locked in a tiny local rectory -the tenderness shoots out of his eyes as he gathers Gillian in.
What a wonderful series of heart-warming, well-delivered and intriguing relationships! Looking forward to Season 2!
