 First edition | |
| Author | Peter Mayle |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Set in | Provence, France |
| Publisher | Hamish Hamilton |
| ISBN | 978-0-679-73114-6 |
A Year in Provence is a 1989 best-selling memoir by Peter Mayle about his first year in Provence, and the local events and customs. [1] It was adapted into a television series starring John Thaw and Lindsay Duncan. Reviewers praised the book's honest style, wit [2] and its refreshing humour. [3]
Peter Mayle and his wife move to Provence, and are soon met with unexpectedly fierce weather, underground truffle dealers and unruly workers, who work around their normalement schedule. [4] Meals in Provençal restaurants and work on the Mayles' house, garden and vineyard are features of the book, whose chapters follow the months of the year.
In 1991 a radio adaptation was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. [5]
In 1993, the BBC produced a television series based on the book, starring Lindsay Duncan and John Thaw, with appearances from Alfred Molina and James Fleet. Unlike the book, the programme was not well received by critics and it was later placed at number ten on a Radio Times list of the worst television programmes ever made [6] [7] with John Naughton, describing it as a "smugathon ... which achieved the near impossible – creating a John Thaw vehicle nobody liked". [7]
Mayle's memoir provided inspiration for the 2008 satirical novel A Year in the Province by Christopher Marsh in which an Andalusian man persuades his wife and his three daughters to relocate to Belfast.
John Edward Thaw, was an English actor in television, stage and cinema, best known for his starring role in the television series Inspector Morse as Detective Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse and The Sweeney as Detective Inspector Jack Regan.
A British sitcom or a Britcom is a situational comedy programme produced for British television.
Alan Gordon Partridge is a comedy character portrayed by the English actor Steve Coogan. A parody of British television personalities, Partridge is a tactless and inept broadcaster with an inflated sense of celebrity. Since his debut in 1991, he has appeared in media including radio and television series, books, podcasts and a feature film.
Richard E. Grant is a Swazi-English actor and presenter. He made his film debut as Withnail in the comedy Withnail and I (1987). Grant received critical acclaim for his role as Jack Hock in Marielle Heller's drama film Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018), winning various awards including the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male. He also received Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor.
Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg of Wigton, is an English broadcaster, author and parliamentarian. He is the editor and presenter of The South Bank Show, and the presenter of the BBC Radio 4 documentary series In Our Time.
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Peter Duncan is an English actor and television presenter. He was a presenter of Blue Peter in the 1980s, and made a series of family travel documentaries between 1999 and 2005. He directed, produced and performed in Jack and the Beanstalk which received a national cinema release in the UK in 2020.
Noel Ernest Edmonds is an English television presenter, radio DJ, writer, producer, and businessman. Edmonds first became known as a disc jockey on Radio Luxembourg before moving to BBC Radio 1 in the UK, presenting the breakfast show for almost five years. He has presented various radio shows and light-entertainment television programmes for 50 years, originally working for the BBC, later Sky UK and Channel 4.
Anthony David McPartlin is an English television presenter, former singer, rapper and actor. He is best known for working alongside Dec Donnelly as part of the presenting duo Ant & Dec.
Esmonde and Larbey were a British television screenwriting duo, consisting of John Gilbert Esmonde and Robert Edward Larbey, who created popular sitcoms starting from the mid-1960s until the mid-1990s such as Please Sir!, The Good Life, Get Some In!, Ever Decreasing Circles, and Brush Strokes.
John Leslie is a Scottish former television and radio presenter. Debuting on the Music Box channel in 1987, he later presented BBC One's Blue Peter, and ITV's This Morning and the gameshow Wheel of Fortune. He was also the studio host for the first series of the UK version of Survivor.
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Nicholas Andrew Argyll Campbell OBE is a Scottish broadcaster and journalist. He has worked in television and radio since 1981 and as a network presenter with BBC Radio since 1987.
David James Stuart Mitchell is a British comedian, actor, and writer.
Peter Mayle was a British businessman turned author who moved to France in the 1980s. He wrote a series of bestselling memoirs of his life there, beginning with A Year in Provence (1989).
Lindsay Vere Duncan is a Scottish actress. She is the recipient of three BAFTA nominations and one Scottish BAFTA nomination, as well as two Olivier Awards and a Tony Award for her work on stage. She has starred in several plays by Harold Pinter. Duncan's film credits include Prick Up Your Ears (1987), The Reflecting Skin (1990), City Hall (1996), An Ideal Husband, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Mansfield Park, Under the Tuscan Sun, AfterLife, Starter for 10 (2006), Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010), About Time (2013), Birdman (2014), and Blackbird (2019).
Peter Dougan Capaldi is a Scottish actor and director. He portrayed the twelfth incarnation of the Doctor in the science fiction series Doctor Who (2013–2017) and Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It (2005–2012), for which he received four British Academy Television Award nominations, winning Best Male Comedy Performance in 2010. When he reprised the role of Tucker in the feature film In the Loop, Capaldi was honoured with several film critic award nominations for Best Supporting Actor.
Michael Chaplin is an English theatre, radio, television and non-fiction writer and former television producer and executive. He grew up in Newcastle upon Tyne where he now lives and works again.
This is a list of British television related events from 1993.
