"The Way We Live Now (TV serial)" redirects here. For the 1969 series based on the same novel, see The Way We Live Now (1969 TV serial)

The Way We Live Now (1969 TV serial)

The Way We Live Now is an adaptation of the novel The Way We Live Now as a serial for television, first broadcast in 1969.-Partial cast:*Colin Blakely - Augustus Melmotte*Rachel Gurney - Lady Carbury*Sharon Gurney - Henrietta Carbury...

.

The Way We Live Now is a 2001 four-part television adaptation of the novel

The Way We Live Now

The Way We Live Now is a satirical novel published in London in 1875 by Anthony Trollope, after a popular serialisation. In 1872 Trollope returned to England from abroad and was appalled by the greed which was loose in the land. His scolding rebuke was his longest novel.Containing over a hundred...

 by Anthony Trollope

Anthony Trollope

Anthony Trollope was one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of his best-loved works, collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire...

. The serial was first broadcast on the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 and was directed by David Yates

David Yates

David Yates is an English filmmaker who rose to mainstream prominence directing the final four films in the Harry Potter film series. He helmed the series' fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth installments, all of which became an instant blockbuster success and made him the most commercially...

, written by Andrew Davies

Andrew Davies (writer)

Andrew Wynford Davies is a British author and screenwriter. He was made a Fellow of BAFTA in 2002.-Education and early career:...

 and produced by Nigel Stafford-Clark

Nigel Stafford-Clark

Nigel Stafford-Clark is a British film and television producer, and the brother of the theatre director Max Stafford-Clark. He was educated at Felsted and Trinity College, Cambridge, and worked in advertising and in sponsored documentaries before becoming a commercials producer at Moving Picture...

. David Suchet

David Suchet

David Suchet, CBE, is an English actor, known for his work on British television. He is recognised for his RTS- and BPG award-winning performance as Augustus Melmotte in the 2001 British TV mini-drama The Way We Live Now, alongside Matthew Macfadyen and Paloma Baeza, and a 1991 British Academy...

 starred as Auguste Melmotte, with Shirley Henderson

Shirley Henderson

Shirley Henderson is a Scottish actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Moaning Myrtle in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire .-Early life:...

 as his daughter Marie, Matthew Macfadyen

Matthew Macfadyen

David Matthew Macfadyen is an English actor, known for his role as MI5 intelligence officer Tom Quinn in the BBC television drama series Spooks and for starring as Fitzwilliam Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.In June, 2010 Macfadyen won a British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting...

 as Sir Felix Carbury, Cillian Murphy

Cillian Murphy

Cillian Murphy is an Irish film and theatre actor. He is often noted by critics for his chameleonic performances in diverse roles and distinctive blue eyes and general sex appeal....

 as Paul Montague and Miranda Otto

Miranda Otto

Miranda Otto is an Australian actress. The daughter of actors Lindsay and Barry Otto and the sister of actress Gracie Otto, she began acting at age eighteen, and has performed in a variety of independent and major studio films....

 as Mrs Hurtle.

Plot summary

Augustus Melmotte is a foreign-born financier with a mysterious past. When he and his family move to London, the city's upper crust begin buzzing with rumours about him—and a host of characters find their lives changed because of him.

Lady Carbury is a widow living in straitened circumstances with her handsome but dissolute son, Sir Felix, and her modest, intelligent daughter, Henrietta. Sir Felix has gambled away his inheritance, and his mother supports them by writing. Her close friend, Mr. Broune, a newspaper publisher, reviews her books favourably because of his regard for her, and clearly wants their relationship to be even closer.

At the gambling club he frequents, Felix hears his friends say that Melmotte's daughter, Marie, will have a huge dowry when she marries. Returning home, he impulsively tells his mother that he will try to retrieve the family's fortunes by marrying Marie. When the Carburys are invited to a grand ball given at Melmotte's Grosvenor Square mansion, Felix, an experienced ladies' man, meets Marie, a trusting and inexperienced girl, and quickly sweeps her off her feet.

The Carburys' cousin, Roger, is a kind and decent country squire. He has been in love with Henrietta for years but has never said anything as she has only recently come of age. Paul Montague is a young engineer, formerly Roger's ward. Newly returned to England from America with plans to build a railroad from Utah to Mexico, Paul meets Henrietta when the Carburys visit Roger's estate.

Roger visits London and proposes to Henrietta, who explains that her fondness for him can never become the love he hopes for. Roger refuses to give up, but when he meets Paul later and reveals what happened, Paul discloses that he too is interested in Henrietta. The men's long friendship is now in jeopardy.

Paul and his American partner meet with Melmotte, who agrees to arrange a stock offering. He invites Sir Felix and a number of his aristocratic friends to join the railroad's board of directors; none of them knows or cares anything about the company's business, but they are delighted at the chance to profit from it.

The stock offering proves a huge success and the share price goes up and up. Melmotte's prestige and influence are greatly enhanced, and he begins to be accepted in English society. Paul, meanwhile, is anxious to go to America to begin construction, but for some reason Melmotte keeps putting off the financial arrangements that are necessary for the work.

Meanwhile, Paul learns that Mrs. Hurtle, a woman he was engaged to in America, has come to London. She vanished before the marriage and he assumed that she had thrown him over. Now she tells him that she means to enforce his promise of marriage. Through a combination of bullying and pleading, she keeps a hold on him.

Sir Felix continues to woo Marie and finally approaches her father, Melmotte, who is cool to the idea because Felix has no money. Marie convinces Felix to elope, that her father will eventually support them financially. To pay for the trip to New York, she steals a cheque from Melmotte's desk. At the docks, Felix fails to board, hung over from a night at his club, while Marie is stopped by constables investigating the stolen cheque, and she is forced to return to her father's house.

Marie is visited by Felix's sister, Henrietta, who informs her that Felix doesn't have the courage to defy Melmotte and has no interest in marrying Marie without a dowry. Marie's feelings for Felix soon change from love to hatred.

Melmotte, meanwhile, has had himself elected to Parliament, and on the strength of the successful railroad stock offering has borrowed huge sums of money and begun other ambitious projects. Only Paul seems to know or care whether the railroad actually exists. When he returns to London to confront Melmotte, Melmotte warns that if the truth is revealed, both Paul and everyone who has invested in the railroad will be ruined. Paul, unwilling to be involved in a fraud even if it makes him rich, tells the whole story to Mr. Alf, who promptly publishes it in his newspaper. The railroad company's stock begins to plunge.

Sir Felix is aware of his sister's interest in Paul, and when Henrietta reproaches him for abandoning Marie, he spitefully tells her what he knows about Paul. Henrietta visits Mrs. Hurtle, who makes Henrietta believe that her affair is still going on. Henrietta then tells Paul they cannot see each other again.

The precipitous fall of the railroad stock causes Melmotte's fortunes to sink as quickly as they rose. His creditors begin pressing for repayment. As a last resort, he asks Marie to turn over to him a large sum of money he put in her name to protect it from his creditors, but Marie, who has become bitter and cynical since the end of her relationship with Sir Felix, refuses. Melmotte commits suicide. Marie, still wealthy thanks to her nestegg, packs up and leaves London.

With the failure of her son's attempt to marry Marie, Lady Carbury is at the end of her rope financially. But the publisher, Mr. Broune, proposes marriage to her and she accepts happily. He persuades her to send Sir Felix, in the charge of an Anglican clergyman, to a remote town in Prussia, far from the temptations of London club life, and where he will not be able to importune his mother for funds.

Mrs. Hurtle, finally realizing that Paul will never marry her, quits London. Before going, she informs Henrietta of the truth. Henrietta and Paul marry, while their former suitors, Roger Carbury and Mrs. Hurtle, each learn to accept the situation with some grace. It is revealed at the end that Paul and Henrietta lived a long and happy life, while Mrs Hurtle dies of old age.

Awards

At the 2002 BAFTA Awards

British Academy Television Awards 2002

The 2002 British Academy Television Awards were held on Sunday April 21, 2002. The ceremony was hosted by the television presenter Chris Tarrant, and broadcast on the ITV Network.-Winners:*Best Actor...

, director David Yates and producer Nigel Stafford-Clark collected an award for The Way We Live Now, which won Best Drama Serial. Suchet was nominated as Best Actor.

Cast

• David Suchet
  David Suchet
  David Suchet, CBE, is an English actor, known for his work on British television. He is recognised for his RTS- and BPG award-winning performance as Augustus Melmotte in the 2001 British TV mini-drama The Way We Live Now, alongside Matthew Macfadyen and Paloma Baeza, and a 1991 British Academy...
  
  : Augustus Melmotte
• Tony Pritchard: Mr Wakeham
• Paloma Baeza
  Paloma Baeza
  -Biography:Baeza lived in Mexico during her childhood. Her Mexican father and her English mother were hippie musicians. In 1975, when Baeza was 5 months old, her parents married in London and they went to Mexico City. They divorced nine years afterwards....
  
  : Hetta Carbury
• Cheryl Campbell
  Cheryl Campbell
  Cheryl Campbell is an English actor of stage, film and television.-Early years:Cheryl Campbell was educated at Francis Bacon Grammar School, St Albans; London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art...
  
  : Lady Carbury
• Cillian Murphy
  Cillian Murphy
  Cillian Murphy is an Irish film and theatre actor. He is often noted by critics for his chameleonic performances in diverse roles and distinctive blue eyes and general sex appeal....
  
  : Paul Montague
• Miranda Otto
  Miranda Otto
  Miranda Otto is an Australian actress. The daughter of actors Lindsay and Barry Otto and the sister of actress Gracie Otto, she began acting at age eighteen, and has performed in a variety of independent and major studio films....
  
  : Mrs Hurtle
• Allan Corduner
  Allan Corduner
  Allan Corduner is an English actor.-Early life:Corduner grew up in a secular Jewish home in North London with his mother, father and a younger brother. His mother had escaped to England from Nazi Germany with her family in 1938...
  
  : Croll
• Tony Britton
  Tony Britton
  Anthony Edward Lowry "Tony" Britton is an English actor. He is the father of presenter Fern Britton, scriptwriter Cherry Britton and actor Jasper Britton.-Life and career:...
  
  : Lord Alfred Grendall
• Angus Wright
  Angus Wright (actor)
  -Biography:Angus Wright was born in Washington, D.C., the youngest child of Virginia and Patrick Wright. His father's career in the British Diplomatic Service took the family to the Lebanon, the United States, the U.K., Egypt, Bahrain, Luxembourg, Syria and Saudi Arabia.Angus gained an M.A...
  
  : Miles Grendall
• Richard Cant
  Richard Cant
  Richard Cant is a British actor, best known for his roles in the hit ITV1 television series Midsomer Murders.He is the son of actress Mary Gibson and actor and children's television presenter Brian Cant...
  
  : Dolly Longestaffe
• Stuart McQuarrie
  Stuart McQuarrie
  Stuart McQuarrie is an actor who has starred in multiple acclaimed films, including Trainspotting and 28 Days Later. In 2008, McQuarrie starred in the film Ecstasy based on The Undefeated from Irvine Welsh's best-selling novel Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance...
  
  : Lord Nidderdale
• Robert Sterne: Portrait Painter
• Tom Fahy: Butler - Grosvenor Square
• Matthew Macfadyen
  Matthew Macfadyen
  David Matthew Macfadyen is an English actor, known for his role as MI5 intelligence officer Tom Quinn in the BBC television drama series Spooks and for starring as Fitzwilliam Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.In June, 2010 Macfadyen won a British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting...
  
  : Sir Felix Carbury
• Lilo Baur: Didon (Marie's maid)
• Shirley Henderson
  Shirley Henderson
  Shirley Henderson is a Scottish actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Moaning Myrtle in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire .-Early life:...
  
  : Marie Melmotte
• Anne-Marie Duff
  Anne-Marie Duff
  Anne-Marie Duff is an English actress best known for playing Fiona Gallagher in Shameless, and Elizabeth I in The Virgin Queen.-Early life:...
  
  : Georgiana Longestaffe
• Oliver Ford Davies
  Oliver Ford Davies
  -Biography:From the King's School, Canterbury, he won a scholarship to Merton College, Oxford, where he read History and became President of the Oxford University Dramatic Society . He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Award in 1990 for Best Actor in a New Play for Racing Demon...
  
  : Mr Longestaffe
• Joanna David
  Joanna David
  Joanna David is a British actress, best known for her television work.She was born in Lancaster, England. Her first major television role was as Elinor Dashwood in the BBC's 1971 dramatisation of Sense and Sensibility followed a year later in War and Peace, in which she played Sonya...
  
  : Lady Pomona Longestaffe
• Maxine Peake
  Maxine Peake
  Maxine Peake is an English stage, film and television actress known for playing Veronica in Channel 4's Manchester-based drama series Shameless, Twinkle in Victoria Wood's sitcom Dinnerladies, and, most recently, barrister Martha Costello in BBC legal drama Silk.-Early life:Peake is the second of...
  
  : Ruby Ruggles
• Trevor Peacock
  Trevor Peacock
  Trevor Peacock is an English stage and television character actor. He was born in Tottenham, London, the son of Alexandria and Victor Edward Peacock.-Television and Film Career:...
  
  : Mr Ruggles
• Nicholas McGaughey
  Nicholas McGaughey
  Nicholas McGaughey is a Welsh television actor best known for playing the character of Brandon Monk in the Welsh soap Pobol y Cwm. He has appeared on a number of top English television programmes such as Casualty in 1998...
  
  : John Crumb
• Jon Rumney: Herr Vossner
• Helen Schlesinger
  Helen Schlesinger
  Helen Schlesinger is a British actress. Helen is a stage actress as well as a TV actress.-TV:*Trial & Retribution as Dr. Harriet Simmons *Sensitive Skin as Masha *Doctors as Rebecca Matthias...
  
  : Madame Melmotte
• Graham Crowden
  Graham Crowden
  Clement Graham Crowden was a Scottish actor. He was best known for his many appearances in television comedy dramas and films, often playing eccentric 'offbeat' scientist, teacher and doctor characters.-Early life:...
  
  : Marquis of Auld Reckle
• Douglas Hodge
  Douglas Hodge
  Douglas Hodge is an English actor, director, and musician who trained for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.Hodge is a council member of the National Youth Theatre for whom, in 1989, he co-wrote Pacha Mama's Blessing about the Amazon rain forests staged at the Almeida...
  
  : Roger Carbury
• David Bradley
  David Bradley (actor)
  David Bradley is an English character actor. He has recently become known for playing the caretaker of Hogwarts, Argus Filch, in the Harry Potter film franchise.-Life and career :...
  
  : Mr Broune
• Fenella Woolgar
  Fenella Woolgar
  Fenella Woolgar is an English actress. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1999 and has since appeared in several film, television and theatre productions. She also works as an audio book narrator and voice over artist...
  
  : Lady Julia Monogram
• Jim Carter: Mr Brehgert
• James Duke: Bank Official
• Rob Brydon
  Rob Brydon
  Rob Brydon is a BAFTA-nominated Welsh actor, comedian, radio and television presenter, singer and impressionist...
  
  : Mr Alf
• Michael Riley
  Michael Riley
  Michael Riley is a Canadian actor and graduate of the National Theatre School in Montreal, Canada in 1984. Riley's first appearance was in the film No Man's Land...
  
  : Hamilton K. Fisker
• Derek Smee: Butler - Caversham Hall
• Michele Dotrice
  Michele Dotrice
  Michele Dotrice is an English actress best known for her portrayal of Betty, the long-suffering wife of Frank Spencer, played by Michael Crawford, in the BBC sitcom Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em, which ran from 1973 to 1978....
  
  : Mrs Pipkin
• Sarah Niven: Simpson