Jim O’Brien was good at giving large casts and complicated stories room to develop. His work on The Jewel in the Crown earns our recommendation, though its patience sometimes leaves the drama waiting for something to happen.
Fi1m perspective
In The Jewel in the Crown (1984), Tim Pigott-Smith makes Ronald Merrick difficult to dismiss. We were disturbed by that performance because it kept us attending to a man we might have preferred to put aside. Jim O'Brien co-directed the series with Christopher Morahan, so its patient attention to the actors cannot fairly be credited to him alone. It remains the strongest reason to seek out O’Brien’s work: a demanding television drama whose performances make the time spent worthwhile.
The fourteen-part adaptation of Paul Scott’s Raj Quartet was filmed extensively in India, giving O’Brien and Morahan a considerable undertaking before anyone began untangling its complicated story. The ambitious location work serves an account of the British Raj’s decline, but the acting is what holds our attention. O’Brien’s skill in handling large casts matters here, allowing individual performances to register within an extended narrative. The reservation is pace, and it matters across fourteen episodes. Some stretches leave the drama stranded, testing patience that the stronger passages have earned.
His earlier single-play work included a 1980 episode of Play for Today; The Jewel in the Crown brought the breakthrough into longer storytelling. The Monocled Mutineer (1986), written by Alan Bleasdale, followed in four parts. Then The Dressmaker (1988) took him into feature films with an adaptation of Beryl Bainbridge’s novel, set in wartime Liverpool. An episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992) added international adventure to that work. The changes of form are worth noticing in a director so closely associated with the extended television serial.
With Rebecca (1997), his last major television work, O’Brien returned to literary adaptation through Daphne du Maurier’s novel, told in two parts. His career offers several different lengths of evening, though our clearest recommendation remains the longest undertaking discussed here. Its virtues are substantial enough to survive our reservations about its speed. Begin with The Jewel in the Crown, provided slow television drama is a pleasure rather than an obligation.
Biography
Jim O'Brien (1947–2012) was a Scottish-born television and stage director. He trained as an actor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and later as a film and television director at the National Film and Television School. He began his career directing at the Nottingham Playhouse.
O'Brien is best known for co-directing the 14-part Granada Television series The Jewel in the Crown (1984) with Christopher Morahan. His other credits include episodes of Play for Today (1980), the BBC serial The Monocled Mutineer (1986), the feature film The Dressmaker (1988), an episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992), and the miniseries Rebecca (1997). From the late 1990s he taught at the National Film and Television School.
