Bouquet of Barbed Wire

I only came to watch this because I had seen that James Aubrey was in it. I'd previously seen him in the 1963 version of Lord of the Flies- a real baby, very innocent, but still a brilliant actor.

Bouquet of Barbed Wire is certainly not innocent. There aren't any full blown sex scenes, buts there's a lot of before and after. Though the racy stuff is what the series is famous for, it actually has quite a gripping storyline and convincing characters.

You have Prue (played by a Susan Penhaligon) who's pretty and spoiled. She has a disturbing manipulative streak, enjoying putting her husband and parents against each other, taking full advantage of the "little girl" act. You find out that she's went out to America, married a guy called Gavin, and got pregnant with his child.

James Aubrey plays Gavin. He's meant to be an American student, complete with fake American accent. It's pretty awful ('Gee, that looks good!" Was very cringe worthy) and I wonder why they didn't just cast a real American. But he's still a good actor and I really did believe in him.

That leaves Peter (Frank Finlay) and Cassie Manson (Sheila Allen) they're Prue's parents, and both hate Gavin, especially Peter. He has a very twisted obsession with his daughter, not just protective, but possessive over her. He absolutely loathes Gavin, blaming him for taking his daughter away. He's got his own problems too; cheating on his wife with a secretary being the main one. And poor Cassie is the neutral one in the argument- but she has a few secrets of her own.

Overall, it's all pretty good. The most cringe scenes are mostly in episode one, and they're not too bad. I'll warn you that the series gets darker and darker- a tangled mess of love and cheating, and manipulation from Prue that eventually leads to abuse.

It's all very atmospheric, and shows the less bright, "hippie" side of the seventies. I would recommend it to any one who can get into a series that's focused on family and sexual dynamics.

Most talked about show of the 70s being 14 I wasn't allowed to watch but bizarrely a schoolmate use to tell us what happened the next day watching it many years later what a let down was very wordy and very much a product of the times Consulting my nudity bible for research I see there was none and I wouldn't be surprised if we now have more shocking plots in daytime dramas.

This TV series exposed the sexual tensions behind an apparently normal British middle class family. Mother and daughter enjoying being knocked about by their lovers. The mother having an affair with the surgeon saving the life of her husband. The series was a big thing at the time, and began the requirement to have more & more spicy story lines.

The previous long-winded review completely misses the point about this series.

Andrea Newman first wrote this story as a novel in the early Seventies, and she has written many other novels and TV series on the same theme - that of the "generation gap" being manipulated by sexually active teenagers. The author is not writing from a "male" or "conservative" point of view, she has simply observed a lot of families and individuals under stress and accurately described a lot of the social neuroses of the Seventies,

(As a matter of fact, I heard Andrea Newman on the radio a few years ago saying that she also wanted to mirror the classic Greek plays such as Oedipus, which would explain some of the more lurid activities in her stories - men jumping into bed with their mothers-in-law, etc.) Certainly the sexual content (without actual nudity) in this series went well beyond anything seen on British TV before this point, but the sex scenes are realistic, not absurd fantasies. Maybe this is why the series made such a huge impact on the viewers. To even hint at incestuous feelings makes most viewers feel uncomfortable, and this had never been implied on TV before (and, come to think of it, few 21st century dramas would dare do this now).

I was very impressed by the acting in this series; this was made back in the days when most TV drama resembled stage plays performed in front of video cameras, and most of the cast are very skilled theatre actors. An exception is James Aubrey, whose "American" accent is hopeless - shouldn't the director have told him not to bother?

The overall message of the series - or at least the message that I perceived - seems to be that sex makes everyone unhappy. Which is rather surprising for the Seventies, but then good writers are people who don't just copy their contemporaries, but have the guts to say what they really think.

I bought this and also another bouquet on video some years ago for purely sentimental reasons and because i loved the haunting music and picture of a young girl running which reminded myself of me as a child in the opening credits .I also have a memory of watching this as i babysat my nephew,it says everything about the time it was made i was 15 at the time and at an age where i was captivated by the manson family exploits . However 34 years on i much prefer to watch another bouquet as the performances seem so much more natural , the original series seems wooden and at times cringworthy even for its middle class setting, although one has to say the domestic violence scenes between pru and gavin are still shocking even for these times , the way manson appears to be in love with his daughter is so strong that its almost repulsive and you long for someone to actually accuse him , esp his wife and her 2 beleaguered twin boys . All things considered though i wouldn't be without these 2 series for there trip down memory lane .