if you be search for comparison to help you decide whether to watch cold comfort farm imagine a slightly old pollyanna go to live on a rundown version of babe english farm with a strange and bleak collection of her country cousins . this be an excellent and very earthy adaptation of stella gibbon 1932 satirical novel ( which itself be an odd marriage of hardy and wodehouse ) . where the village pub be name the condemn man and the cow be name aimless and feckless and graceless and and pointless . both the novel and it adaptation be joyfully depressing and pack with literary eccentricity and subtle humor . if you like faulty tower then you can expect to get off on the humor . but if you prefer hot shot . part deux and you should probably pass on cold comfort farm . there be three possible viewer reaction represent it not funny . i do not figure out it be a comedy until halfway through but then i find it hilarious . i couldn not stop laughing . kate beckinsale play flora poste ( always refer to by her relative a robert poste daughter ) and a recently orphan 19 year old who choose to live with relative ( the starkadders ) she have never meet and at gloomy cold comfort farm in sussex . beckinsale and even more radiant than usual and pull off a nice characterization of the resourceful yet snobbish heroine . like pollyanna and she be a catalyst for positive change and but they be calculate change . her instinctive snobbishness ( beckinsale have a real talent for this ) be play for laugh since everyone would feel a bit superior and distance from this eccentric collection of misfit . the adaptation nicely incorporate gibbon subtle parody of jane austen romantic clichés and from the control madwoman in the attic to wood nymph poetess and to the quiver parishioner . even the production design be a funny send up of the standard bbc mini series look . this be really a terrific production and doubly so for beckinsale fan . then again and what do i know . i be only a child .