The second part of this adaptation of Galsworthy’s saga leaps forward two decades to concentrate on the next generation of the family which is now divided, the rift the result of what happened in Part 1. It is a fast-moving continuation of the story into the 1920s that is probably best enjoyed by those who have already seen Part 1, but if seeing it on its own, you get the back-story at the same time, as the rift is explained to the children of those in the first play who are now grown up.
Those children are Fleur (the narrator of the first play, though she wasn’t born then) and Jon from the other side of the family, who now meet for the first time. They are the children of now-divorced Soames and Irene Forsyte with their second spouses: French former shop assistant Annette (Florence Roberts), married by Soames in his desperate hopes of a son and heir and Jo Forsyte, charged to look after Irene by his late father who has inherited the country house originally built for Soames.
Does that sound as though it is complicated? Well it is, but the telling is clear here.
Flora Spencer-Longhurst as Fleur (still in the blouse and slacks which marked her out as a narrator from a later age in Part 1) begins this play by announcing it as her story. She is sprightly and modern but has some of her father’s traits, though her charm hides them.
Joseph Millson’s Soames is still a dominant figure but now seems more likeable. Despite disappointment at not having a male heir, he is genuinely fond of his daughter and wants the best for her, but the rift between him and his ex-wife is unreconcilable. When Fleur and Jon chance to meet and then fall in love, parents of both stop them from seeing each other.
Fleur already has another suitor, minor aristocrat Michael Mont, who already has her father’s approval and, when happiness with Jon seems to disappear, becomes more responsive to his attentions. Jamie Wilkes makes him rather overeager and a bit of a buffoon, bringing some much-needed humour into the action. There is a delightfully staged episode in his wooing when he takes her on a punt down the river. They do get married, but is this what Fleur really wants?
The two parts of this Forsyte Saga cover a period from the 1880s right through to the General Strike, with respectable Forsytes volunteering to drive omnibuses and take on other worker roles.Theirs is a class that doesn’t question its position, but this is the only glimpse we get of the Forsytes in wider society. But Galsworthy gives a picture of inbuilt misogyny, and the play provides a graphic and shocking reminder of what were considered male marriage 'rights' under laws that were not changed until 1992.