The Forsyte Saga, Parts 1 and 2.
The Swan Theatre, Stratford upon Avon
Part 1:  ★★★★☆
Part 2: ★★★☆☆

HAVING imported this acclaimed production from London’s Park Theatre, the RSC must feel confident in presenting this two-part version of John Galsworthy’s epic family drama as a feel-good show over the Christmas period.

Those expecting a Downton Abbey experience will be disappointed. This is not a period extravaganza but a carefully charted, stripped-down path through a story known to millions from a number of highly successful TV productions.

However, TV episodes allow the freedom to develop some of the more subtle aspects of the story available to the novelist, notably the tone and colour and especially the author’s attitude to his characters. In the theatre these depend essentially on the actors.

Here, a cast of nine cover 16 roles on a bare stage backed by huge imperial red velvet curtains, with no scenery and only chairs for props in an epic-style production, and a selective adaptation of the novels by Shaun McKenna and Lynn Coghlan that was originally made for radio.

For those unfamiliar with the plot, we are taken into the late Victorian world of a newly monied stratum of society who put a cost price value on everything including human relationships. The extended Forsyte family represent the core of this fraternity, among whom ownership rules.

When Soames Forsyte, a wealthy solicitor needing a son, finds his wife, Irene, implacably resistant, he eventually brutally asserts his marital ownership rights. She leaves him, causing a social scandal.

The two parts with a natural period break can be seen separately.

Part One has to provide a context, which is skilfully done by having Fleur (Flora Spencer Longhurst), the daughter of Soames and yet to be born, as a narrator and commentator on the main characters’ feelings. This allows the audience to follow the action which leaps from scene to scene at breakneck speed.

Upon Queen Victoria’s death, the red curtains are lowered, marking the end of the Forsytian era — one of the play’s few symbolic moments.

Part Two is set in the post World War I transformation, which is busy rejecting the values of the past without finding new ones, and is largely concerned with a generation still trapped by its inheritance. Like her father’s, Fleurs is a story of frustrated love fuelled by a selfish possessiveness but less intense, perhaps because it is more “modern.”

What holds this all together is the superb acting from a cast totally at home with their multi-roles. Older members of the audience will remember Eric Porter’s Soames while younger viewers may recall that of Damian Lewis. Here Joseph Milson’s Soames joins their distinguished company.

Runs until January 10. Box office: 01789 331 111, rsc.org.uk