Summer's Lease DVD

This four-part mini-series is an elegant story of atmosphere, comedy and mystery written and adapted by the prolific author John Mortimer. It is full of brilliantly captured performances by a host of British character actors, including an Emmy award winning performance by John Gielgud. From the moment she set eyes on it Molly Pargeter (Susan Fleetwood) knew that she had to take the villa 'La Felicita' in Tuscany, Italy for her familys summer holiday. Since childhood she had cherished a passion for Italy and art, and this Tuscan escape offered the promise of viewing priceless art, and relaxed sunny days, far from her stable, dull life in west London. Undeterred by the bossy and patronising tone of her would-be landlord, Molly takes her unwilling family and all-too-willing father, aged rou and columnist Haverford Downs (John Gielgud), to the hills of Italy. When the water supply mysteriously fails, and a neighbour suddenly dies she finds herself increasingly obsessed with unravelling the secrets of the villas enigmatic land-lord and becomes dangerously involved with the curious concerns of the local expatriate community