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 her performance in the film "Love & Friendship". Beckinsale was born in Chiswick, London, England. She is the only child of actors Richard Beckinsale and Judy Loe. She has an older paternal half-sister, actress Samantha Beckinsale, but they have not had regular contact. Her father was of one quarter Burmese descent. She made her first television appearance at the age of four, in an episode of "This is Your Life" dedicated to her father. When she was five years old, her 31-year-old father died suddenly of a heart attack. Beckinsale was deeply traumatised by the loss and "started expecting bad