Gloomsbury

Radio Times review

Sue Limb's literary parody (sorry, "Rhapsody about Bohemians") is back for a third series. Hitler may be causing trouble in Europe, but for the self-obsessed Bloomsbury artistes life continues uninterrupted. Vita Sackcloth-Vest (Miriam Margolyes) is still hiding her steamy romance with Venus Traduces. Naturally, Venus's unexpected arrival at Sizzlinghurst leads to a sub-Wodehouse imbroglio of fake names and Marxist spies.

There's something charmingly disrespectful about Gloomsbury, particularly Alison Steadman's Ginny Fox character (a merciless send-up of Virginia Woolf). If you're misty-eyed about all things Bloomsbury, and calling DH Lawrence "Dave Lollipop" makes you smile, Gloomsbury is sure to raise a chuckle.

Roger Lloyd Pack comedy role to be aired

The late Roger Lloyd Pack is to be heard in one of his final roles later this month, in Radio 4 comedy series Gloomsbury.

Gloomsbury (Radio 4, Friday) is the Bloomsbury of Harold Nicholson, Vita Sackville-West, Virginia Woolf and Violet Trefusis as re-imagined by clever Sue Limb and recreated by a brilliant cast (Miriam Margolyes, Alison Steadman, Nigel Planer, Morwenna Banks, Jonathan Coy). It bustles along, shifting assorted real-life infatuations, elopements and enthusiasms into the higher planes of nonsense. Oddly, however, the thrust of the performances seemed greater than the grip of the narrative.

"It is the autumn of 1922, give or take a year or two," rolls out the upper-class, Noël Coward-esque voice of the unnamed narrator of this six-part comedy drama. Cut to Vera Sackcloth-Vest (played with crazed gusto by the fabulous Miriam Margolyes), writer, gardener and transvestite, who is struggling with her staff at Sizzlinghurst Castle. Why do they insist on calling her madam instead of sir? Country life in Kent is so tedious and Vera longs for some excitement. What she needs is to elope with a lover, but first she had better run this past her devoted husband, Henry.

Writer Sue Limb echoes the literary styles of the Bloomsbury Set with pin-point accuracy. Our introduction to Ginny Fox (a brilliantly perceptive, if rather cruel, take on Virginia Woolf, portrayed with obvious relish by Alison Steadman) has the introspective writer staring at a crack in the ceiling for hours and being reminded of her love for Sackcloth-Vest.

How long it will be before these two can escape the drudgeries of normal life (in vast country estates!) and elope with one another is the subject of this opening episode. The writing and acting are both faultless and the series cast includes other great comic names such as Morwenna Banks, Nigel Planer and John Sessions, who crops up as saucy novelist DH Lollipop in future weeks.

This is a real Bohemian rhapsody - and I bet it moves to TV!

The generous sexual morés of Bloomsbury have been a gift to satirists for decades, and Sue Limb becomes the latest writer to unwrap their comic potential. It is an Autumn afternoon at Sizzlinghurst Castle where writer Vera Sackcloth-Vest is planning one of her Sapphic elopements and wants to tidy the garden before she goes. "I must just tie up Mrs Herbert Stevens," she cries. "I don't want her thrashing about in a gale." Miriam Margolyes stars as Vera, while Alison Steadman and Morwenna Banks play her inamorata, Ginny Fox and Venus Traduces.