The Rainbow is a BBC television three-episode serial of 1988 directed by Stuart Burge, adapted from the D. H. Lawrence novel The Rainbow (1915).
Contents
Outline
Ursula Brangwen is the eldest child of Will Brangwen, a farmer, and his wife Anna. She has a fascination with rainbows and one day she runs away from home looking for the pot of gold at the end of one.
As a teenager, Ursula has a crush on Winifred Inger, her gym mistress at the girls' high school, and she also has romantic feelings for Anton Skrebensky, who is at the boys' high school. They spend a lot of time together, including hill walking. Ursula agrees to become a nude model for a local artist, but she walks out after he makes a pass at her. She is jealous when Winifred gets engaged to her Uncle Henry. Ursula and Anton leave school. He joins the army and goes to fight in the Second Boer War, while she moves to London and gets a job as a schoolteacher at an elementary school in the East End of London, where she has to fend off unwanted advances from the headmaster of the school.
A year later, in the spring of 1901, Ursula returns to the farm and meets Anton, just home from the war, and they begin an affair. Ursula also starts to work for the Derbyshire miners union. When she thinks she is pregnant, Anton wants to marry her, but she turns him down, and he goes away. After fighting off an attempted rape by two miners, Ursula gets a telegram from Anton to say he has married someone else and has been posted to British India.
During a rainstorm, a rainbow appears, and Ursula packs a suitcase and again runs away from home, chasing the rainbow.
Her story is continued in D. H. Lawrence's novel Women in Love.
Cast
Imogen Stubbs as Ursula Brangwen
Robyn Cooper as Young Ursula Brangwen
Martin Wenner as Anton Skrebensky
Kate Buffery as Winifred Inger
Colin Tarrant as Will Brangwen
Jane Gurnett as Anna Brangwen
John Evitts as Mr Harby
John Tams as Mr Brunt
Clare Holman as Gudrun Brangwen
Roy Spencer as Vicar
Emma Kedge as Ethel
Martin Bettridge as Billy Brangwen
Tom Bell as Old Tom Brangwen
Jon Finch as Uncle Tom
Eileen Way as Lydia Brangwen
Claire Thompson as Catherine
Kathryn Brown as Cassie
Tom Bailey as Williams
Paul Duke as Billy
Emma Chambers as Margaret
Sarah-Jane Holm as Dorothy
Fabia Drake as Aunt Olga
David Beames as Uncle Fred
Phyllida Hewatt as Mrs Phillips