The result is an honest and unforgettable novel of love, sacrifice, and devotion, a major literary achievement from the acclaimed author of Black. Dame Philippa is about as different a role as can be imagined from a certain supersexy secret agent that Rigg had popularized eight years earlier, and to the actress' great credit, she makes a very convincing job of it. Author Rumer Godden spent three years living in close proximity to Stanbrook Abbey in Worcestershire communing with the Benedictine nuns in preparation for the writing of this beloved bestseller. How exceptional she is, especially in her emotionally conflicted scenes with Joanna, in her final moments with Agnes, and in her touching scenes with (head Mother) Catherine (again, nicely played by Gwen Watford). Although all the actresses on display here are quite good, it is Diana Rigg, naturally, who takes top honors. Her life at Brede is made complicated by the jealousy and mistrust of elderly Sister Agnes, by the arrival of a group of Japanese girls whom she must instruct, and most especially by the advent of Joanna, a young postulant (well played by Judi Bowker) who arouses Philippa's maternal instincts. Thus, her application to Brede, where we follow her, over the course of nine years, as she progresses from postulant to novice to junior to dame. Here, Diana plays Philippa Talbot, a British businesswoman who has suffered some genuine tragedies in her life and who finds her current lot empty and meaningless.

Many of my fellow reviewers here seem to feel that this televised version cannot hold a vestal candle to its original source, and that does not surprise me isn't the book always fuller, richer, deeper? Still, what HAS been put on screen still offers much. Rumer Godden (19071998) was the author of more than sixty works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and children’s literature, and is considered by many to be one of the foremost English language. Almost 20 years before being proclaimed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, Diana Rigg was portraying a dame of a very different order-that of a fully inducted member of a Benedictine abbey-in the 1975 TV film 'In This House of Brede.' Perhaps I should mention here that I have not read (Margaret) Rumer Godden's 1969 source novel, and can only comment on the film that I have seen.

In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden