`Empires' Strikes Out; On `Masterpiece,' a Soggy Vaudeville Saga
by Tom Shales
Washington Post Staff Writer
 

Even Alistair Cooke looks a bit sheepish about introducing the
latest "Masterpiece Theater" entry, "Lost Empires," which begins its
seven-episode run tomorrow night at 9 on Channel 26 and other
public TV stations. Cooke marvels that J.B. Priestley was 70 when
he wrote the book on which the serial is based. To judge from the
filmed version, he should have stopped at 69. 

Damp and chilly as English manners, "Empires" has milieu
aplenty but nothing more. It is set among vaudevillians who
perform in theaters (often named "The Empire") in the years 1913
and 1914, with the war guns booming, literally in one scene, in the
distance. A way of life is coming to an end and a callow youth
growing into manhood. It's all been said and done before, and
 much more convincingly than here.

The youth is played by the contagiously sedentary Colin Firth, who
is dreary enough skulking about on camera, but downright
soporific reciting the overexplicit voice-over narration ladled on by
adapter Ian Curteis. Newly orphaned, the lad signs on as
apprentice to his nasty Uncle Nick (John Castle), an insufferable
misogynist who considers all women "tarts" and likes to bully
midgets. On stage, Uncle Nick is a pseudo-swami called Ganga
Dun who does half-baked magic tricks. If only he could make
himself disappear, and take "Lost Empires" with him. 

The slim story is padded out with variety numbers, including the
obligatory rabble-rousing recruitment tunes sung by beckoning
chorines. "Empires" opens and closes with such routines,
seeming to have stolen them directly from "Oh! What a Lovely War,"
the stage and screen show about England's naive entry into the
hellish conflagration at hand. A song featured in "War," Jerome
Kern's "They Wouldn't Believe Me," is rudely included in "Empires," too. 

Three supposedly fascinating women figure in the hero's minstrel
life: Carmen Du Sautoy as the moody Julie, Gillian Bevan as the
moody Cissie and Beatie Edney as the moody Nancy. Moody they
may be, but they certainly outclass Firth in the old esprit
department, and you do wonder what they see in this sodden blob 
of protoplasm. 

Part 1 is fitfully enlivened with appearances by Laurence Olivier as
an impossibly seedy old has-been called Harry G. Burrard, whose
every performance is greeted with catcalls, jeers and sometimes
by tossed vegetables from the surly throng. Olivier is reprising the
role he played in the film version of "The Entertainer," more or less,
but he radiates hokey brio. Alas, he expires in Part 1 of this
desultory downer. "Lost Empires," produced by Granada
Television, is "Minorpiece Theater," at best.