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
Kate Beckinsale love her." The programme was aired in autumn 1996, just months after Gwyneth Paltrow had starred in a film adaptation of the same story. Caryn James of "The New York Times" felt that while "Ms. Beckinsale's Emma is plainer looking than Ms. Paltrow's," she is "altogether more believable and funnier." Jonathan Brown of "The Independent" has described Beckinsale's interpretation as "the most enduring modern performance" as Emma. In 1997, Beckinsale appeared opposite Stuart Townsend in the comedy "Shooting Fish", one of the most commercially successful British films of that year. "I'd just had my wisdom teeth out," Beckinsale later recalled