Rent Serjeant Musgrave's Dance (1961)
4.1 of 5 from 46 ratings
1h 19min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
Patrick McGoohan and John Thaw star in this television adaptation of John Arden's intense, powerful play, initially screened in 1961 as a Granada Play of the Week and adapted by Arden himself. Set against a background of nineteenth-century imperialist conflict, Serjeant Musgrave's Dance is acknowledged as one of the most important works to explore the futility of ever-escalating revenge cycles and the dehumanisation of war. In a performance considered one of his finest, McGoohan brings typical intensity to the character of Musgrave, whose maniacal attempt to confront a horrified town with the realities of war lies at the heart of the play. Serjeant Musgrave and his small band of men arrive in an impoverished northern coal town, ostensibly on a recruiting drive; it is also suspected that they have been dispatched to break up a strike. But Musgrave and his men are deserters, traumatised by atrocities witnessed in a nameless colonial conflict. They have brought with them the body of Billy Hicks, a soldier from the town who has been killed overseas. Musgrave is tormented by remorse over Hick's death, and the killing of five men in a reprisal by British forces. Now, insisting that his actions are sanctioned by the same divinely unimpeachable logic, he holds the snow-bound town hostage. Mirroring the calculated brutality of cyclical conflict, he orders the execution of 25 townsmen - five further deaths for each of the five... - Actors:
- Patrick McGoohan, Freda Jackson, Donal Donnelly, Jeanne Hepple, Denis Carey, John Thaw, Joby Blanshard, Michael Collins, Trevor Danby, Michael Hunt, Stratford Johns, John Kidd, Derek Newark, Jack Smethurst, John Tate
- Directors:
- Stuart Burge
- Producers:
- Peter Graham Scott
- Writers:
- John Arden
- Studio:
- Network
- Genres:
- British TV, TV Classics, TV Comedies, TV Dramas
