View source for Anna of the Five Towns

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| publication = Bournemouth Echo
| file = 1985-01-09 Bournemouth Echo.jpg
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| date = 1985-01-09
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| language = English 
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EX-TIME LORD Peter Davison undertakes some very different time travel in the new serial for BBC-2, an adaptation of Arnold Bennett's classic tale Anna of the Five Towns.

Peter, a former Doctor Who, is rapidly transported back to the 1890s in this four-part story that begins tonight at 9 pm.

"It was a great chance to do something different after Doctor Who" he said. "And in fact I started working on Anna of the Five Towns only three days after finishing the Doctor Who series.

"I do look very different In this as I have a moustache. Originally the character was going to have a beard so I started to grow that. Then they decided that wasn't quite right for the part so I started on a moustache.

"But I didn't have time to grow a decent one and ended up with one you stick on, which was quite good because at the end of the day I could just take it off."

The heroine of Bennett's novel is Anna Tellwright, a young woman who inherits a vast fortune at the age of 21 and sets about freeing herself from the clutches of her miserly father.

Anna is played by Linsey Beauchamp in her first major television role, who will also be seen next year in the BBC TV serial Tender is the Night.

She originally read for another part but producer Colin Rogers and director Martyn Friend both thought she was tailor-made for the part of Anna — a role they had been trying to cast for some time

"I read for one part," Linsey explains. "And then the next morning they offered me the lead. It was the answer to my dreams. I couldn't quite believe it when they told me.

Anna was dramatised by John Harvey and also features Emrys James, Anton Lessor, Anna Cropper and Edward Kelsey.

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