Cold Comfort Farm Have Always Been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm", set several years later and based on "Conference at Cold Comfort Farm", when Flora is married with several children, was broadcast. In 1995 a television film was produced which was generally well-received, with critics. Janet Maslin in the "New York Times" wrote that this screen version "gets it exactly right". The film starred Kate Beckinsale as Flora, Joanna Lumley as her friend and mentor Mary Smiling, Rufus Sewell as Seth, Ian McKellen as Amos Starkadder, Eileen Atkins as Judith, Stephen Fry as Mybug, Miriam Margolyes as Mrs. Beetle, and Angela Thorne as
Cold Comfort Farm (film) to be a writer, decides that the only way for her to live whilst researching her writing is to stay with relatives. Her city-based relatives show no interest, so she sends letters to her country relatives. There are a few responses, most of them unsuitable, but one is intriguing. Flora decides to stay for a while with the Starkadder family on their rundown farm. The Starkadders are an assortment of rustic, uncouth, and truly eccentric characters, each of whom has a hurdle (be it physical, emotional, or spiritual) to overcome before reaching his or her potential. Flora quickly realises that,